


Book I: Blue Flower

by bideru



Series: C'est la Vie 5 [1]
Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Fruits Basket, Persona 2, Persona 3, Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst and Feels, F/F, F/M, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Multiple, Struggling with acceptance, Terminal Illness, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, but so many characters are here guys, chapters will be individually tagged, easter eggs and tributes to other series/popular fandom headcanons and jokes, please read the preface, set in everyday Japanese society so expect lots of notes, this is a complicated fic, to keep the tags from going down the page i'm only tagging pov or major characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:15:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 22
Words: 65,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24528235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bideru/pseuds/bideru
Summary: Ren's parents have died in a car accident and now he must take in his siblings Futaba and Shinya. While balancing the sudden imposition and his new role as head of the family, he must also contend with his demanding job as a member of the Tokyo police force, his parents' businesses and their funeral, and his own feelings of grief. Futaba has become a shut in and Shinya is bordering on delinquency. His boyfriend Ryuuji is his rock, but Ryuuji has a secret of his own that he feels he now can't burden Ren with (because who drops a bomb on a man whose parents just died?)Shinjiro is keeping dark secrets from Minako, concerned she’s already pushed to the brink. A murderer stalks Tokyo and the police have no leads, leaving Makoto two steps shy of a mental breakdown and Ren with more work than he can handle. Everything had been so much easier when his parents were still alive.
Relationships: Amamiya Ren/Sakamoto Ryuji, Aragaki Shinjiro/Female Persona 3 Protagonist, Persona 5 Protagonist/Sakamoto Ryuji, Suzui Shiho/Takamaki Ann
Series: C'est la Vie 5 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1772626
Comments: 22
Kudos: 16





	1. Preface

**セ・ラ・ビ 5: 青い花**

**C'est La Vie 5: Aoi Hana**

**_A series with long, overarching plots, C'est La Vie 5 is the product of years of character retooling, research, and refining. What starts with the traumatic death of the fathers of Amamiya Ren, Futaba, and Shinya leads into the discovery of a terrible family secret. The Amamiya patriarchs touched many lives throughout the series, notably Arisato Minako, herself struggling with an ailing brother. Her boyfriend is hiding secrets of his own about his former life, and those secrets are starting to come out of the shadows. Aragaki Shinjiro left that life behind, however, and is not at all interested in former gang member Urameshi Yuugi's seeking a job at the LGBTQ haven the Stray Sheep in a seemingly genuine attempt to turn his life around. All Nishikado Sojiro wants to do is fix his two best friends up but they're both being stupidly difficult about it, to the point where even shy Kuragi Machi has to say something to them. Meanwhile, a series of murders around Tokyo has Commissioner Sato Makoto more on edge than her boss's pressures on her to perform, because they have no leads and a growing pile of bodies._ **

This work is part of a series, **C'est la Vie 5** , I had originally conceived over twelve years ago in college. I had been watching the live action Sailor Moon at the time, and I doodled chibi versions of the characters in my notes as visual reminders to help me remember important information in class, including Hina Kusaka as well (because I adored her). I took Japanese at the time, so these doodles, with little speech bubbles in the language, also served a dual purpose in reinforcing the language when I was not in that class.

I tried turning C'est la Vie into a _something_ several times. A series, a comic, a proper manga, or a story. (This is why this version is C'est la Vie **5**.) Over time, I collected some of my favorite characters from different anime/manga and put them into the series. These were characters I either fell in love with and could not let go, or characters I felt had gotten the raw end of the deal in their actual series. I wanted to DO something with them. So I did. And that culminated into C'est la Vie 5.

C'est la Vie 5 is **not** quite straight fanfiction of your favorite characters, nor is it exactly a crossover. 

I feel it is best if you proceed into the story with the knowledge that the characters presented here share the same looks and basic personalities as the characters you know, but their histories may or may not line up with their series' canon. Their names and relationships to each other may even be different. For example: Sawai Usagi, one of the original characters from my college doodles, takes her name from her series counterpart Usagi and the actress who played her in the live action, Sawai Miyuu. Several characters have names like that. Others, like the Amamiya family, are the result of of popular headcanons or themes that I enjoy across various social media platforms. (Tatsujun is a very popular ship, and them being Ren's fathers was very popular on Tumblr when Person 5 was first introduced, for example. Because Ren is the main character, Ren's last name was given to them, rather than them giving their last names to him.) Others are simply the result of my own headcanons. 

C'est la Vie 5 was constructed as the novelization of a manga. The manga, sadly, fell through, but the novelization still lives. Both were and are a personal project of mine, created for fun. The series is set in **modern day Japan** and as such, there was an immense amount of research done to make certain things feel authentic. Much of the geographical setting is grounded in the Persona series, being that the Persona series gives the most geography of any fandom to work with, but I have also utilized settings from the other fandoms my characters originally came from, as well as a few real life cities. This series is a **no powers AU** , meaning that nobody was ever cursed/Thieves/Senshi/etc. These are just normal people, in normal Japan, in the normal world. There are many nods to other series in here, as well as meta jokes, inside references to fandom jokes, and random characters from random fandoms just kicking around and having a good time.

There are a LOT of LGBTQ characters and themes in this series. In modern Japan, the characters, settings, and reactions here are not always okay, and the series does not make an attempt to shy away from this. A lot of research was taken on this subject as well, as it is a huge factor in much of the story surrounding Ren's fathers, and in Ren himself and how he was brought up, and how he sees and carries himself. Many of the characters in this series are sympathetic to and supportive of LGBTQ people, and keep in mind that is because they are part of that community (being LGBTQ or allies themselves). Some characters are not. There is one such scene in the very first chapter of this series of an unsupportive character. This series (as a whole, not just this particular fic) also deals with other important issues such as suicide, women in power, depression and grief, murder, racism, and abandonment. 

Every chapter will be individually tagged in the notes at the top of the page. Please feel free to leave any questions or concerns in the comments. I hope you enjoy!


	2. Ren (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren receives a harrowing call in the middle of the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Major character death, mild descriptions of wounds.

**雨宮蓮** **Amamiya Ren**

The call came in the middle of the night. Half asleep, he kicked at the sheets tangled around his legs. It was hot tonight, and he was sweating.

He heard Ryuuji fumble for the phone. Ryuuji had always been a light sleeper.

“What the fuck. It’s two in the morning,” Ryuuji grumbled. It came out as one long word.

A pause. “So talk to him at work then.”

Another pause. A sharp intake of breath. “ _ Oh. _ Shit.”

He felt Ryuuji roll over, felt him throw an arm over him, and tried in his sleepy haze to shrug him off. It was too hot to cuddle.

“It’s Narukami-kun.” Ryuuji’s breath was warm in his ear, his voice urgent. “Hey. It’s Narukami-kun. You need to talk to him.”

He groaned and fumbled for the phone over his shoulder, accidentally knocking it away. He mumbled what might have been a curse or what might have been just noise and fished the phone from the tangle of sheets. Ryuuji pulled back, giving him space and a much needed breeze of slightly less warm air on his back.

“Moshi moshi.” His mouth was dry, his tongue fat and sticking to the insides of his cheeks. He tried to shake the sleep from his voice. It had to be something important from work.

“Ren. It’s Yu. I’m sorry to call so late.” Narukami Yu was Ren’s senpai at work. He sounded distressed.

Ren scrubbed a hand over his face. “It’s okay. What’s going on?”

“Matsuda just called. Car accident, down in Setagaya.”

“Okay?” Ren frowned. Why was Yu calling him about something as banal as a car accident? Surely that sort of thing could wait until morning, and did not require his input? He yawned. “Do you think it’s foul play? Drinking?”

“No, Ren, just－” Yu took a shaky breath. “Matsuda said… Ren, the people in the car…”

“What, senpai?”

“They were your parents.” Yu’s voice cracked as he spoke. “Matsuda… He said they didn’t make it.”

Ren wasn’t sure he heard correctly. He ran a hand over his face again, propped himself up on one elbow. “What?”

“They were hit by an oncoming car.” Yu spoke quickly. “The car was… Matsuda said it was crushed. The hood… He said… When he got there… There was no sign of the car that hit them… and your parents had already passed…”

Ren didn’t reply. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He felt Ryuuji pull him close, felt the stuffiness of the night air and the sweat already pooling between them, hot tears falling onto his skin as Ryuuji crushed Ren to himself, unspeaking. He gripped the phone tightly, its smooth sides and Ryuuji’s arms the only things keeping him anchored to the world. He heard Yu as though from far away, resigned as the bearer of horrible news, saying, “We couldn’t let some stranger at the coroner’s office tell you, Ren. It had to be one of us,” but he was no longer participating in the conversation. He knew his face was wet but with tears or sweat he was unsure, and he lay there for what seemed like forever, held together solely by the man beside him, who was trying his best to be quiet in light of this waking nightmare, to be strong, because when the sun came up, the world would fall apart.

* * * 

Ren knew how these things went. He had, many times, accompanied a victim’s friends or family to identify a body. It felt different when he was the victim. Yu-senpai had volunteered to go, as had Commissioner Sato Makoto, but Ren knew it had to be him. As the oldest, as their son, it had to be him. Yu and Makoto-san had understood, and offered to come with instead, but he had politely declined. He trusted only one person to see him in the very worst moment of his life, and he knew he needn’t even ask. Ryuuji had informed his work at 5am that he would be out for the week and stood ready as Ren prepared to make the trip to the city morgue.

Ryuuji had said nothing as they walked into the room where Ren would identify his parents, even as Ren’s grip on his hand had become steel. Before them were two tables upon which were two bodies covered by clean white sheets. Ren closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and nodded to the coroner, who folded back first one sheet and then the other in one smooth motion. Ryuuji, who had never seen a dead body, suppressed a shudder and placed his free hand gently, steadyingly, on Ren’s arm, and Ren braced himself. He opened his eyes.

Immediately before them on the first table lay his father, his sweet papa, Amamiya Jun. The bodies here weren’t like the bodies at funerals. Jun bore every cut, every injury from the accident. There was a flap of skin open on his cheek, probably from glass. A long, dark, horizontal bruise lay across his chest, and another on the other side from the seat belt. But he didn’t look  _ dead _ , and Ren almost expected any moment for him to sit up and smile, that warm soft smile, and tell him it was just a scratch, nothing to worry about. 

And then Ren’s eyes slid over to the other body, and all the air vanished from his lungs.

Amamiya Tatsuya lay in ruins on the far table. Blood caked his hair, though the coroner had done his best to clean his face. One shoulder was cut to ribbons, as was the arm it was attached to, and with a start Ren realized that the bruise on his papa’s chest had come from Tatsuya, that in their last moments Tatsuya had flung his arm out to protect him. His big strong tousan…

Ren felt lightheaded.

“Amamiya,” he heard Ryuuji say, his voice shaking. “Jun and Tatsuya. Same last name.”

Ren didn’t know how long he’d been standing there. He honestly didn’t know how he was still standing at all.

Ryuuji let go of Ren’s arm to awkwardly grab the coroner’s clipboard. Right. The stupid form. There was paperwork, identification papers and release of personal effects. Normally this would be done in another room, but Ren needed air and he knew Ryuuji could see he was dangerously close to losing it.

The coroner was perturbed but did not protest. It made his day go by faster. He read over what Ryuuji was scribbled － Ryuuji had awful handwriting － and raised an eyebrow. “They were  _ married _ ?”

“Yeah.”

“Two men can’t get married.”

“Living together. In a relationship. Whatever.” Ryuuji watched the coroner delicately change a few words.

“Identities verified by Amamiya Ren?”

“Yeah.”

“Relationship?”

“I’m their son.” Ren startled them both by answering. The words came out barely a whisper.

The coroner turned his attention to Ren. “I’m sorry, whose son?”

“Theirs!” Ryuuji was getting angry. This was normally when Ren would step in and diffuse the situation, but he just didn’t have the presence of mind right now to do that. Ryuuji was on his own.

“I’m sorry? Sir, I have to name one of them as the father.”

“They’re  _ both _ the father!” Ryuuji jabbed at the clipboard and at Ren. “He has two fathers! It’s not that fucking hard to understand! And he just lost both of them so can you stop being such a fucking asshole about it?”

The coroner blinked. Looked about to object. Took a deep breath instead. “I see.” Scratched something out on the form. 

“I’m sorry, I’m afraid the writing is smudged here. You are?”

“Sakamoto Ryuuji.” Ryuuji placed his hand back on Ren’s arm. “His  _ boyfriend. _ ”

The coroner stared at Ryuuji a long moment and nodded awkwardly, lips pursed. He led them out of the room. Ren’s legs felt wooden. He watched without really seeing as the coroner held out what could be salvaged of his dads’ things. Ryuuji took the bag and gently led him out, shooting the coroner a dirty look over his shoulder.

Ren was silent on the subway home to Yongen-Jaya. Ryuuji fidgeted. He was a fidgeter. He’d never been able to sit still. Once outside, Ren walked with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, head down, and Ryuuji worried. He watched Ren unlock the door to their apartment and he shuffled in, already toeing off his shoes.

“I’m sorry, Ren-Ren,” he blurted, “you know I have a big mouth and I needed to pick a fight and I took it out on that － Ren?”

Ryuuji was already halfway into the living room when he realized Ren wasn’t with him and looked back. Ren hadn’t moved. He still stood at the door, hand on the knob, head down.

“Ren-Ren?” Ryuuji started back towards him. “You okay? C’mon, come inside.”

_ I’m not okay _ , Ren wanted to scream.  _ How could I be fucking okay? I just saw my dads dead on a table and Tousan died protecting Papa and the coroner － the fucking coroner － couldn’t even be respectful to my face and I’m the oldest, Ryuuji, what will I do about Futaba and Shinya, I have to tell them, what am I going to say, and, and… _

But when he opened his mouth, all that came out was a strangled cry. Yu’s nighttime call could’ve been just a bad dream, but seeing his parents, seeing their injuries, had made it real, had imprinted onto the backs of his eyelids so that he saw it every time he closed his eyes. He felt his legs give way beneath him and he slumped against the front door, knocking his rapidly fogging glasses askew. His very heart felt ripped from his body, just an empty void where it used to be, and with every breath the void throbbed. 

Pain pain pain. 

They’re dead dead dead.

Gone gone gone.

And suddenly there was Ryuuji, his Ryuuji, scrambling to the floor with him, wrapping his arms and legs around him and encasing him in a Ryuuji cocoon, and Ren couldn’t move, there was too much void inside of him for his precarious frame to shift without crumbling, but Ryuuji understood. Ryuuji always understood. He pressed trembling kisses to Ren’s hair, hot tears welling in his eyes, because Ryuuji had loved Ren’s dads too, and held him tight until Ren felt he could reach up, the tiniest motion, and grab onto his boyfriend’s arm, his one lifeline, and in the sticky July morning, they sat in a heap at their front door and sobbed.


	3. Ryuuji (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryuuji takes a moment to calm down and process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Ryuuji's mother, fluff and angst

**坂本竜司** **Sakamoto Ryuuji**

Ren had always been the orderly one. Ren made their meals. Ren cleaned. Ren stuck to a seemingly impossible schedule that after four years Ryuuji still couldn’t quite understand. Ryuuji had always been one to go with the flow. He helped out at home, sure, but generally shirked whatever responsibilities he could get away with. Holding Ren last night, Ryuuji knew that would change, and quickly.

He had eased Ren up after he had long cried himself out. He had made a plan of attack for the day. Tell Ren’s brother’s and sister’s schools what happened and arrange for schoolwork to be sent home. Pull them out of class today. Eat something, anything. And, as he caught a whiff of himself and Ren, he added a shower to that list. They desperately needed it. And normally Ryuuji wouldn’t pass up the chance to shower with Ren, but he thought Ren needed the time to himself today.

So Ryuuji gently helped him into the bathroom and let him know he was only one room away. Ren nodded blankly and closed the door. The sound of running water soon followed. Ryuuji sighed in relief and scrubbed a hand through his hair － still bleached after all these years, a remnant of his teenage rebellion. His leg ached and he rubbed at it gingerly; he had broken it a decade ago, and laying on it all night and then sitting the way he had for the past hour had left it throbbing. Limping slightly, he made his way over to the couch and fished his phone from his pocket.

He had several text messages and missed calls. Narukami-kun, after receiving no reply from Ren, had texted him asking after them and if there was anything he could do. Several of Ren’s colleagues and work friends had done the same, looking for Ren. Even Akechi (how did Akechi get his phone number?). His own friends from the high school he worked at, Shiho and Yuuki-kun, were concerned at his sudden absence, as it was not like him to skip, and evidently Shiho had told Ann (because girls tell each other everything, and it was worse when they were dating), because he had  _ seven _ texts from her. Ryuuji ignored all of them, and after a moment’s hesitation, dialed his mother’s number.

“Ryuuji!” 

His mother’s voice, warm and pleased to hear from him, wrapped around him like a hug, and Ryuuji was suddenly overcome the mental image of her. Her dark brown hair tucked behind her ear. Her love of silly food-themed earrings. The smile she saved just for him, no matter how tired or grumpy she was, spreading over her face when she saw him. 

“This is a surprise.” He could  _ hear _ that smile, and he felt a lump build in his throat, felt his eyes burn again.

“Mama.” He tried to keep his voice even. “Moshi moshi.”

But his mother knew. She always knew. He wasn’t his sister, who lied as easily as she breathed. “Ryuuji? What’s wrong?”

If she were here, he knew, her eyes would be wide, concerned and focused on him and only him, and she’d already be halfway to his side.

“Are you okay, Jiji? Is Ren okay?”

It was the use of his childhood nickname that did him in. 

“No, Mama,” he gasped, and that was it. He couldn’t stop himself. In between tearless sobs － because he’d cried himself out with Ren － he told her everything. The horrible phone call. Ren’s terrifying calm during the night, and the breakdown just now. The trip to the morgue and seeing Ren’s dads just lying there like slabs of meat. The coroner and his  _ bullshit _ attitude and how it was more important than a man’s  _ grief _ .

His mother － his wonderful, amazing, beautiful mother － was patient with him, and let him blow himself out. She had weathered outbursts like this before. Here and there she said “oh no!” and “oh my…” but she did nothing to stop the words bursting from her broken dam of a son, and it wasn’t until he had started sniffling that she tried to speak.

“I’m so sorry, Jiji,” she said softly. “I know how much you loved Ren’s－”

“I love you,” Ryuuji blurted, unable to stop himself. “Mama, I love you. You are the best mama I could have ever asked for, and I am so grateful to you for raising me and being my mama.”

There was a sniffle on the other end, because Ryuuji didn’t say that nearly enough, and then his mother said, “Jiji-chan, you silly boy, you sound like I’m dying! I’ll be on this earth long after I’m dead － someone has to keep your sister in line!”

They shared a little laugh at that and the laughing felt good. He spoke to his mother a few minutes more and told her again he loved her before hanging up and getting ready for what would undoubtedly be the worst day in the lives of the Amamiya family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There a few different words you can use to address your parents in Japanese. Ren calls his fathers tousan and papa, for instance, and Ryuuji calls his mother mama. The polite way, and the way you are mostly to learn, to address one's parents, is otousan お父さん (おとうさん) for father and okaasan お母さん (おかあさん) for mother. Ren uses a less formal version for Tatsuya, just saying tousan とうさん, but for Jun, he borrows a word from English, papa パパ. Ryuuji also uses a borrowed English word for his mother, mama ママ. Such foreign loanwords are not uncommon and are oftentimes even considered "cute."


	4. Futaba (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren steps into the role of big brother for the last time and delivers terrible news to his siblings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Major character death, bad reaction to bad news

**雨宮双葉** **Amamiya Futaba**

Kusaka-sensei was writing furiously on the board, her chalk screaming  _ clack! clack! clack!  _ She was speaking as she wrote, something about the excerpt of  _ Kokoro _ in the textbook. Most of the students were taking notes.

Going into standby. Idle animation.

Tousan had taught her to think of life as a video game when she was very small. It was something he’d tried during one of her worst tantrums, when the Mizunos had moved in next door and their dog wouldn’t stop barking and the city was working on the power lines and they had no power. She’d always been easily overwhelmed by the world and the people in it － “overstimulated,” Papa called it. It was Ren who discovered her fascination with video games, and if she was a good girl, she could play for an entire hour every day. But she couldn’t play her games that day because those men were working on the lines. Tousan had understood. He’d sat in front of her and asked if she’d wanted to play a game. He told her that if they couldn’t play video games, they would turn the world into one.

As she got older and her interests branched into computers and other electronics, she added that knowledge to her little game too. Sometimes she thought her fathers worried that she still carried on with this headcanon, but as Papa said, it got her socializing and out of the house, and it calmed her. 

The door to her classroom opened, but she paid it no mind. She was writing out a list of parts she needed to upgrade her computer. A new sound card would be the most costly, but perhaps if she put aside 30% from her part time job for the next few weeks...

“Amamiya Futaba.”

System scan paused.

“Amamiya-san, you are to report to the principal’s office,” Kusaka-sensei was saying. “Mishima-san will escort you.” She indicated the intruder, who turned out to be Mishima Yuuki, the baseball coach.

A problem has been found. Run diagnostics?

Mishima Yuuki said nothing on their way downstairs but kept glancing at her, his eyebrows knitted together. Futaba had known Yuuki most of her life － he was her brother’s friend, a common fixture at their house after school, and she found it embarrassing he had chosen her school, Kaibara High School, to work at. He always asked after her kindly and Futaba liked him, but Yuuki was a worrier and sometimes his anxiety set off her own. 

Like now.

“Yuuki-kichi, you’re making my skin crawl. Stop looking at me like that,” she told him, but he kept at it. Yuuki was weird like that though, so it could be something or it could be nothing.

He kept up his silent act all the way to the first floor. And then, outside of the principal’s office, Yuuki hugged her, so tightly she gasped for air, and if she could have jumped in surprise, she would have.

“Hey! What’s going on? You’re pulling my － ow! － my hair! Let go!”

He did, and quickly turned his face from her, but Futaba saw that his eyelashes were wet.

“Yuuki-kichi, what is it?”

But Yuuki would not answer her. He knocked on the office door to signal her arrival and left, either not wanting to hear more questions or not wanting to deal with what was on the other side. The door opened before she could go after him and she had no choice but to leave him, and to enter the office’s maw.

Her school’s principal was a skinny twig of a woman with short hair and a long face. She sat solemnly behind a large desk devoid of anything that might have signalled a personality. There were only two other people in the room. One was her younger brother Shinya, looking just as confused as she was. The other was her older brother Ren.

Analysis commencing.

Her brother looked up at her. His face was pale and his eyes red, cradled by dark circles. He hadn’t slept. His hair was damp and he wore a T-shirt and jeans － he also had not gone to work today. His hands lay clenched in his lap.

Problem detected. Troubleshoot?

“Ren?”

“Hey Futaba.” Ren’s voice was scratchy. Analysis: Her brother was emotional. “There’s been an emergency.”

“Emergency?”

Status effect: Confusion. Target: All party members. Analysis: Shinya did not know what Ren was talking about.

The principal discreetly dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. Analysis: She  _ did _ know, and it was not good.

“Where are Tousan and Papa?”

Futaba didn’t miss the grimace that passed over her brother’s face, though it was gone as soon as it had come. Analysis: The emergency involved their dads. Status effect: Panic. CPU speed decreased thirty percent.

“I’m supposed to take you both home,” her brother said in his odd scratchy voice. It bothered Shinya too; he scuffed at the floor with his head down.

CPU speed decreased fifty percent.

* * * 

Ren tried to chat with them on the subway home, but Ren  _ chatting _ was  _ weird _ , and Futaba’s audio output was malfunctioning. Shinya, in an uncharacteristic attempt at being a reasonable person, chatted back. (Her sound card must be glitching.) Standby mode engaged.

The house was empty when they got home. Futaba thought their dads had said they’d taken off the day they returned from vacation, but perhaps they’d decided to go in anyway. Tousan couldn’t leave his motorcycles alone for a second, and Papa had been worried about leaving his employees alone at the flower shop. (“I can trust Minako-chan, but Usagi-chan by herself is a scary thought.”) Or maybe they’d gone out for lunch, as they sometimes did. Or maybe they weren’t even home yet － were they supposed to be home this morning or tonight?

Ren asked if they were hungry, as Papa always did, except it was one in the afternoon and they’d already had lunch at school. Futaba sat down at the kitchen table, her eyes running over the lines in the wood. A long time ago she’d figured out there were exactly seven hundred and ninety-three lines running through it. It had taken her two days and she had screamed whenever anyone had dared try and interrupt her.

“We don’t want food, Ren,” Shinya snapped. He stood in the doorway, frowning, with his arms crossed. A little brat. Papa said that Shinya was a lot like he had been at that age. “Tell us what’s going on.” 

Ren sighed and sat down heavily. He gestured for Shinya to sit with them and Shinya did with surprisingly little resistance. (Her visual input must be glitching too.) He started picking at the skin on his fingers after a moment, staring intensely at Ren. It was a nervous habit he’d picked up from Futaba, from before the world became a video game, and both Tousan and Papa scolded him for it.

System scan in process. Standby mode disabled.

Ren closed his eyes. He seemed in need of more strength than he possessed. “I received a phone call last night,” he began. “About Papa and Tousan.”

Bug found. Run diagnostics?

“Are they okay?” Shinya demanded, always on edge from hormones and teenage rebellion.

Ren looked at each of them in turn, choosing his words carefully. “They were in an accident,” he croaked, and his voice wobbled dangerously.

CPU speed decreased seventy-five percent. Glitches in audio input and output. Run diagnostics?

Shinya glanced over at her before turning his attention back toward their brother.

“It was bad,” Ren continued, and his eyes were glassy. Ren did not cry, Futaba knew. She couldn’t recall him ever having cried. “It was really bad…”

Internal fan malfunctioning.

“Are they okay?” Shinya shot forward in his chair, his chest hitting the table with a soft  _ thump _ . 

On television, these scenes pass quickly, the cop stony-faced and apologetic. In real life, the cop was their brother, and he couldn’t get the words out. Shinya was scowling, his voice rising as he demanded, for the third time, "Ren! Are they okay?!" 

After an eternity, the extinction of humanity, the birth and death of the entire universe, Ren shook his head. 

It seemed to Futaba it happened in slow motion.

Visual input malfunctioning. CPU speed decreased ninety percent. Reset recommended.

“They…” Ren’s bottom lip trembled as badly as his voice, his mouth contorting around the words. “They didn’t… They didn’t make it.” Tears spilled down his cheeks. “I’m sorry.”

System failure. Reset.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know shit about computers but my dear friend who builds them read this chapter and did not yell at me so I thiiink(?) I did okay.
> 
> Kokoro is a real book students read in Japan. 
> 
> The Japanese school year starts in April and goes until July (sometimes into August). Then from September to December, and the last semester is from January to March.


	5. Shinya (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinya reacts badly to the news of his fathers' deaths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: When in doubt run away, major character death, denial, shooter games, mentions of guns (video game equipment but still)

**雨宮信也** **Amamiya Shinya**

“What… what do you… They’re coming home today! They’re coming home!”

Shinya had screamed at his brother, over and over, that Jun and Tatsuya were coming back. That they would be back as soon as they returned the rental car. And Ren had just shook his head, twin rivers running down his face － and Shinya could not recall ever having seen his brother cry － and told him that no, they weren’t coming home, they couldn’t come home. Not today. Not ever. And Futaba sat catatonic in her chair, unresponsive to his yelling or Ren’s lies, and Shinya couldn’t  _ take _ it, this was some kind of  _ bullshit _ joke, it had to be. He’d stood up so fast he’d knocked his chair over and screamed at his brother that he was a liar, that this was sick, that who in their right mind says they spent the morning at the morgue looking at their dead fathers?

And then he ran, ignoring Ren’s cries calling him back.

Shinya ran and ran and ran. He ran until his lungs burned, the July heat wrapping around him like a thick blanket, stuffing his nose and mouth like cotton and making it hard to breathe. He was sweating, small rivers coursing from under his hair, flowing down his chest and back. He didn’t look where he was going. His feet slapped the pavement hard and he didn’t notice until it hurt, and finally Shinya didn’t know where he was. He was gasping for air and drenched in sweat. 

He plopped himself down right there in the street, ignoring the passersby, and pulled out his phone. He tapped the Maps icon. It seemed he’d run nearly out of Kichijoji, and he’d been running for a long time. In that moment, Shinya understood, a little, why Ryuuji still ran, despite his bad leg. It was freeing. His mind wasn’t as scrambled. And he knew he needed something to  _ do _ , somewhere to  _ go _ . 

He sat for a little while longer, until it no longer hurt to breathe, before lurching up and slowly making his way to the nearest subway station, stopping only to buy a drink at the convenience store. 

But he didn’t go home. Ren was at home, and now with his mind a bit straightened out, there was a gnawing feeling in his gut, a sickening feeling, that Tatsuya and Jun were  _ not _ there, and maybe weren’t going to be.

Instead, Shinya took the subway to Azaba-Juuban and stomped down the posh little street to Crown Karaoke and Games. School wouldn’t be out for a few more hours and the place was mostly deserted, which suited Shinya just fine. Azaba-Juuban was a rich kid neighborhood he’d normally never visit, but Crown was the only arcade in Tokyo to have the new shooter game, Demi Bout. His regular haunt in Akihabara wouldn’t be getting one for another month at least. Crown was overpriced and the kids were dull, but some of them stopped to watch him beat his own rankings at Demi Bout, and if Nefuro was working, he got discounted snacks and drinks. 

Crown’s air conditioning hit him like a slap to the face and he stood for a moment just appreciating it. They had air conditioning at the house － Jun had grown up with it and thought that houses just came with that sort of thing － but Tatsuya didn’t like to turn it on. “Nothing wrong with a fan and a cold drink in the summer,” he’d say, but Shinya had always been on Jun’s side. Air conditioning was the way to go. 

He spotted Nefuro out of the corner of his eye, arms full of boxes and mouth probably full of curses. Shinya didn’t understand why someone like Nefuro worked in a place like Crown. Nefuro was coarse and short-tempered and angry, and he did not like children or karaoke. But he was great at shooter games, and he’d given Shinya a run for his money more than once at Gun Do, the last big shooter. Shinya liked Nefuro; he was one of the few adults who didn’t treat him like a little kid.

One of the karaoke rooms was occupied, the light above the door a solid bright green, and there were a small handful of people scattered about. Crown was advertised as a gaming center, and it did have all the big titles － Gun Do, Let’s Dance, Pakku Pakku － but it was, at heart, a karaoke center, and most of the space was dedicated to private karaoke rooms. 

Demi Bout had a place of honor as the newest attraction, right by the doors, and Shinya made his way over. The cabinet was a sleek black with DEMI BOUT emblazoned in electric blue English down the side. He slid the plastic gun controller, also black, from the console, feeling the weight of it in his hands. Earlier today, he’d been planning to take his frustration with a bad test score out here, but now…

Shinya aimed, and shot.

* * * 

There were only two pairs of shoes by the door when Shinya came home: Futaba’s and Ren’s. The gnawing feeling in his stomach grew more insistent.

Ren sat in the same place Shinya had left him at the kitchen table, his glasses off and his head in his hands. His phone lay in front of him, its screen dark. Their sister was not there － probably shut herself in her room, Shinya thought. Futaba was known to not leave her room for days if she became too overwhelmed. He didn’t know if they’d ever get her out again.

“I’m home,” he mumbled, and saw relief in his brother’s eyes as he looked up.

“Welcome home.” Ren put his glasses back on. “Ryuuji, uh, brought food over. In the fridge, if you want it.”

Shinya shook his head. “Not exactly hungry.”

“Yeah, Futaba wasn’t either.”

Shinya dropped his schoolbag on the floor and sat down. No one spoke for several minutes. Ren seemed almost afraid to, and Shinya realized he was afraid of Ren speaking too.

“Shin-chan,” Ren said softly, finally. “Papa and Tousan… they aren’t coming home.”

And Shinya knew. Had known. As he’d played Demi Bout and shot zombie after zombie, as his mind cleared and he was able to think, he’d realized what Ren had told him and Futaba had to be true. Why else would he have taken them out of school in the middle of the day? Why else would he have been so upset?  _ Ren _ , his calm and composed older brother? And he hadn’t  _ wanted _ to believe it, had gotten so angry at the realization and yelled so loudly at the stupid zombies and the stupid kids watching him with their stupid faces that Nefuro had to come over and pull him off the game, afraid he’d get in a fight or break the controller (and that was rich, since Nefuro had done both in the time Shinya had been playing at Crown). Hearing Ren say it again, the grief thick in his voice, only confirmed it, solidified the wrongness Shinya had been feeling but not had a name for all day.

He felt he was going to be sick.

* * * 

Jun wore a disapproving look, but Tatsuya, as always, flashed him that same old grin, the one that always got Jun to relent, the one that always got Tatsuya his way.

“Jun-chan,” Tatsuya assured him, “it’ll be okay,” and though Jun’s expression did not change, he gave the very slightest of nods.

“YES! YATTA!” Shinya heard himself － a younger version of himself － shout, and watched a little Shinya jump up and down with younger versions of his siblings. Futaba, her long hair in an approximation of pigtails, knocked her glasses askew in excitement, and when she smiled, she was missing her two front teeth. Younger Ren wore his middle school uniform and not his glasses, so Shinya guessed that he himself was about four or five. He watched his tousan turn to his younger self, a wide grin on his face.

“Ready, Shin-chan?”

And little Shinya screamed in delight and ran to the large black and red motorcycle Tatsuya called his Waifu (and it wasn’t until Shinya started learning English that he got the joke) and began hopping from foot to foot in anticipation.

“Hurry uuup!” little Shinya whined, which only served to comically slow Tatsuya’s steps. “Touuusaaan!” He balled his little fists. “Let’s goooo!”

“You hold onto him, Amamiya Tatsuya!” Jun called after them, standing dead center at the gate and frowning. He didn’t tear his gaze from them as his hand shot out to catch Futaba by the arm to stop her running into the street after Tatsuya. “You hold on tight! Only  _ one _ street!”

Tatsuya swung his leg over the seat and hoisted Shinya in front of him, wiggly and squirming with childhood excitement. He grinned as his youngest tried to imitate the familiar sounds of the engine and called back, “You got it! We’ll be right back!” To little Shinya he said, “Ready for the real thing?” and Shinya screamed and clapped as the motorcycle roared to life.

Futaba screamed too as they took off and Ren whooped and Shinya remembered never feeling as free as he had that day his tousan had taken him out on the motorcycle. He watched his younger self and Tousan fly down the streets of Kichijoji, Shinya begging for “one more street!” and Tousan all too happy to appease him. He still remembered the sun on his face, the wind in his hair, and the rainstorm they’d been caught in…

Except… they’d never been in a rainstorm… 

And his vision started to grow darker and less clear… 

The outline of Tousan became fuzzy and Kichijoji began to dissipate around them. 

Shinya could feel his eyelids straining, and then suddenly he was somewhere else entirely. He wasn’t four years old, on a motorcycle in the sun with Tousan. He was in his bed, in the dark, and he was crying.

Shinya scrubbed at his face with his hands. He curled up tight in a ball, squeezed his eyes shut, and prayed he would see Tousan and Papa again when he fell back asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Azaba-Juuban is the district of Tokyo Sailor Moon takes place in, and Crown is a business there. In the anime and manga it's an arcade, and in the live action it's a karaoke parlor, so here it's both! The games mentioned are a nod to other Japanese games.
> 
> Nefuro is from Sailor Moon. Specifically, he is from live action Sailor Moon. He is based on Nephrite. (I love Nephrite, but only in the live action.) He's the second Sailor Moon character so far, but the first one wasn't important.


	6. Ryuuji (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryuuji shoulders some of Ren's burden by delivering the bad news to the employees of his papa's flower shop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I upload this story from a file I haven't touched in over a year, and make small edits and corrections as I find them, I'm noticing just how much this was truly meant to be the novelization of a manga, lol. Short scenes, lots of action.

**坂本竜司** **Sakamoto Ryuuji**

Ren had been staying at his dads’ house with Futaba and Shinya, mourning with them privately for the past few days. He and Ryuuji spoke every day on the phone, but never about that. Always about how Futaba still hadn’t come out of her room, or how Shinya had grown surly and barely spoke to him, or － more importantly － all of the legal things that happen when someone dies. Ryuuji found that part difficult, and he and Ren sometimes enlisted the help of his mother to explain the things Ren was now responsible for. 

Guardianship of his siblings was first and foremost, but then there was the matter of where they were all going to live. Ren thought it best for him and Ryuuji to move to Kichijoji, into his dads’ house, until Shinya moved out, but after digging through their financial documents (a task not easily navigated over the phone, Ryuuji learned) and the Amamiyas’, and having Ryuuji’s mother explain the complications of _owning_ property in Tokyo, Ren and Ryuuji just could not afford it. The storage fees for Tatsuya-san’s motorcycle alone were going to be outrageous enough, but Ren was adamant that it had to be saved.

“Shinya will want it,” was all the reason given, and Ryuuji couldn’t find it in himself to argue that.

It was decided that Futaba and Shinya would move into their apartment in Yongen-Jaya. Ren and Ryuuji had moved into a larger apartment last year, with an extra room Ren could use as an office and one Ryuuji could use for physical therapy. (His doctor had been on him for years to get a real physical therapist － “You’ll lose mobility in that leg if you don’t work it!” － but Ryuuji found running with his track students and stretching at home to be an okay substitute so far.) 

His mother, when she had time (and he hated to bother her more than he already was), helped him carefully pack everything up, clean, and even cook full meals that Ryuuji took to Kichijoji every day. (He bought something ready-made for himself from the convenience store on the way home.) 

He went to bed sore and with an aching hip, but Ren needed him, and he couldn’t let him down. He had only a few days － the Amamiyas would move in after the funeral － and so much to do. The apartment was rapidly accumulating boxes from the Amamiya house, but most were for storage, and those Ryuuji set aside until they could borrow Sato-san’s van. She was Ren’s friend and boss, and Ryuuji didn’t feel right asking her himself, even though she, Narukami-kun, and about a dozen others had left voicemails and text messages offering condolences and help.

There was one person whose help he didn’t mind. His best friend since sixth grade, Takamaki Ann was a comfort when he needed a hug and a kick in the ass when he was being a brat. She’d grown up tall and pretty and had been modeling since high school. Unlike Yuuki and Shiho, Ann worked odd hours and had called several times since Narukami-kun’s terrible phone call to check on him. Aside from Ren and his mother, Ryuuji was closer to no one else in the world than Ann.

“Ryuuuuji!” 

There was a rattling in the lock and the front door swung open. Ann was the type to let herself in and apologize later, and she’d had a key to the apartment nearly as long as he had. 

“I have cake!”

Ryuuji had given her that key for emergencies. He didn’t consider cake to be an emergency. 

“You always have cake,” he called from the remains of his workout room. He emerged a few minutes later to a grinning Ann.

“Cake is healing,” she protested, holding up a fancy box. It must have come from Ginza － she’d been working there all week. In truth, Ryuuji liked cake, but he didn’t eat much of it unless Ann was around.

“You just missed my mama,” he told her, taking the box. “She was here first thing with some papers for Ren.”

“Shoot!” Ann pouted and followed him into the kitchen. Of course she knew the place as well as he did, and she shooed him away while she got out plates and served the cake. “I need to visit her. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“She said to tell you if I saw you that your new ad is ‘really beautiful, utsukushi!’”

Ann grinned. “The perfume ad?”

“I don’t know, I don’t follow your career!”

“Ryuuji!” Ann snatched his cake away, pouting comically. “I am _hurt_ ! You know I model _exclusively_ for your attention.”

Ryuuji rolled his eyes, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Yeah, yeah. Give me back my cake, Takamaki.”

“Cake you don’t _deserve_ ,” Ann grumbled, but she let him have it. Today’s variety was a strawberry vanilla sponge cake topped generously with whipped cream and a real strawberry.

“This is my lunch, you know.” Ryuuji picked up his fork and stabbed at the defenseless sweet in a manner that made Ann cringe. She believed cake was a sacred delight from the gods (or some crap) and should be treated delicately. “Got a lot to do today.”

“Stop destroying it,” Ann complained, daintily scooping off some whipped cream. “What do you need to do? Can I help? I’ve got a few hours free.”

Ryuuji shook his head. “Mama brought food over, so I need to take it to Ren, and the paperwork she brought too. And I have to go to the flower shop and let Jun-san’s employees know.” He bit into his strawberry. It was one of the good ones, incredibly ripe and sweet. “Today’s the only day they’re all there, Ren said.”

“Is he going to sell it?” Ann asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. The shop or Tatsuya-san’s garage.”

Ren had grown up in both shops, but much of his childhood had been spent in that garage. There weren’t many private vehicles in their part of Kichijoji, but there were enough for Tatsuya-san to have a small mechanic shop and two employees. As they’d gotten older, it was Shinya who spent the most time in the garage and knew the most about which vehicles came through and how they worked, which is why Ren wanted to save Tatsuya-san’s motorcycle for him.

Ann licked whipped cream from the corner of her mouth. “When’s the wake?”

“Tomorrow,” Ryuuji sighed. His eyes dropped down to his empty plate, something which did not escape Ann’s notice.

“Ryuuji,” she ventured after a moment, her voice soft. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Ryuuji was quick to look up, confused. “Why?”

“Have you had any time to yourself? To process all of this?”

“I’ve been by myself all week, Ann.”

“But have you…” Ann searched for the right word. “Have you actually taken the time to think about all this? To _grieve_? This is important, Ryuuji. They were your family too.”

“But they weren’t my dads,” he said quietly, avoiding her eyes. “My dad is dead.” He scrubbed a hand over his face and chanced a look at her. “Ren needs me. I’ll be okay, Ann. For real.”

Ann sighed. “Just… make sure you’re taking care of yourself too, okay? I worry about you.”

“I’ll be fine, Ann,” he assured her. “Thank you.” He gave her a small smile and started clearing their plates. For a few minutes, there were no sounds but the clink of tableware and running water.

“Hey.”

“Yeah?” Ryuuji turned the water off and looked over his shoulder at her.

“I’ll go with you to Jun’s,” she offered, and Ryuuji started to laugh.

“You just want to check out the girls,” he teased.

Ann grinned. “Busted.”

“What would Shiho say?” Ryuuji demanded, referring to his coworker and Ann’s girlfriend.

Ann laughed. “She’d ask me if they were pretty!”

* * *

Ryuuji was not the biggest fan of the underground market in Shinjuku. It wasn’t so much the crowds that bothered him, but the feeling of being closed in. Several of the larger subway stations had walkways connecting to underground malls, and Ann had dragged him through enough of them when they were kids for him to know he didn’t like them. But here, in the biggest and busiest mall, was where Jun-san had his shop, ostensibly named after himself. He’d filled every available space with flowers in every color, some very small and delicate and some as large as melons, all neatly labeled with their name and price. The counter that held the register displayed a selection of books for sale on various subjects such as pressing flowers, flower arranging, and flower language (Ryuuji did not know what in the hell _that_ was). Several customers milled about and Jun-san’s employees were scattered among them. One customer wanted a bouquet for her mother (and Ryuuji thought that he should get one for his). Another was placing an order for flowers for a private party － “something airy and light to distract from this awful heat.” A couple was paying at the register, having decided on an arrangement in a glass vase. Ryuuji hadn’t been to Jun’s much － he was not a flower person, really － but he and Ren had helped out during the busy period, and Ryuuji’s school had once or twice placed a large order with Jun’s for the culture festival. The girls here knew him, so it was no surprise when, after the couple left, the girl at the register called out, “Ryuuji-kun! Konnichiwa!” and Ryuuji knew who it was without looking, though he turned to her anyway with a small smile in greeting.

Jun’s had three employees. Ochi Naru and Arisato Minako were respectful and level-headed (though Ryuuji knew Arisato could, at times, be just as loud and fun as himself and Ann). Sawai Usagi had boundless energy and treated everyone as her own friend, speaking informally and with first names. She had called him Ryuuji-kun as long as he’d known her. Some people found her friendliness bordering on rude.

“Sakamoto-san!” said Ochi in surprise, making her way over. “It’s nice to see you again － it’s been a long time. How have you been?”

“Oh… you know…” Ryuuji didn’t want to say anything until the customers had all gone and they had closed for lunch. Quickly, before she could ask what he meant, he said, “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m very well, thank you.” Ochi was always unfailingly polite, but she was also very sharp. She seemed to realize that something was off, because she was looking at him oddly.

“Ryuuji-kun, Jun-san is supposed to be back from vacation soon!” Sawai, however, remained oblivious. “He and Tatsuya-san went to Okina! I wonder what they brought back for us?”

“Baka Usagi-chan!” Ochi scolded. “Don’t expect gifts from people!”

“But Okina has matcha-vanilla candies that melt in your mouth! They’re shaped like seashells!” This seemed to matter a great deal to Sawai, whose eyes had gone wide. “I asked Jun-san for them!”

“ _Baka_ ! You _asked_ him?” Ochi sounded scandalized, but her face said that this was typical of Sawai. What a kid. Ryuuji wondered how old she was. “You’re so rude, Usagi-chan!”

“They only make them in the summer!” Sawai protested.

“So save up your money and go to Okina yourself,” Ochi retorted.

“Who’s going to Okina?” Now Arisato, having finished her party order and filed away the receipt, had joined in. “Oooh, is it a work trip? Are we getting exotic beach flowers for the shop?”

“We’re getting matcha-vanilla seashell candy!”

“No we’re not!”

Ryuuji could see this would quickly devolve. How did Jun-san work with these girls? “Hey!” he said loudly. “C’mon, it’s lunchtime. Let’s close up. I, uh. I got some news from the Amamiyas.”

Ochi gave him that weird look again and went to lock the doors and hang the OUT TO LUNCH sign. Sawai kept babbling on about Okina and the souvenirs Tatsuya-san and Jun-san may have brought back. Arisato ducked into what Ryuuji assumed was the office, and after a few minutes emerged with a small tea tray.

“We only have jasmine tea,” she said apologetically. “I hope that’s okay.” And Ryuuji had to laugh despite his grim mission because of course there would only be flower tea in a flower shop. Jun-san really knew how to stick to a theme.

“It’s fine, thank you.” He waited until the girls each had a cup, suddenly uncomfortable. He’d just realized he hadn’t prepared for this. His friends had already heard from Ren, or Shiho. This wasn’t like telling his mother. He couldn’t fall apart on these girls, Jun-san’s girls.

Well, he was here now. He had to say it, practiced or not.

“What’s this news, Sakamoto-san?” asked Arisato.

“Oh! Are they extending their vacation?” Sawai exclaimed, spilling a bit of tea.

“Usagi-chan!” Ochi shot her an exasperated look and went to fetch some paper towels.

“Not exactly.” Ryuuji shifted his weight anxiously to his other foot, and then winced, as it was on his bad leg. “It’s not _good_ news…” And _that_ made them all pay attention, even Sawai.

“Is everything okay?” Arisato asked cautiously, and Ryuuji shook his head.

“No. No, it’s not. Um.” He held his cup tightly. It was smooth lacquer, with a delicately hand painted picture of a crane wading among the reeds. Combined with the subtle scent of the tea, it soothed him a little, which he’d always been told was the point of tea. He started again.

“Ren － you remember Ren? Jun-san’s son? － wanted me to apologize that he couldn’t be here to tell you this. He’s at Aporo Garage speaking to Tatsuya-san’s employees. It’s, uh… time sensitive, and you all work today, and he wanted you all to find out at the same time from the family, and, uh. I guess… I’m kinda family.”

All the girls’ attention was on him. Ochi stood by the office, the quest for paper towels forgotten.

“Jun-san and Tatsuya-san were in a car accident,” Ryuuji told them. Sawai gasped. “They died.”

They stared at him, as though waiting for him to tell them ‘Oops, sorry, bad joke!’ But the seconds wore on, and it became apparent that it wasn’t a joke. What he’d said was real.

Sawai let out another noise that was nearly a shriek. Ochi clutched at her for support. Arisato dropped her cup in shock. A puddle of tea formed and spread until it touched their shoes, but no one moved to clean it up. No one noticed.

Ryuuji realized he could have delivered this information more gently. He should’ve let Ann come with him. Ann would’ve done it right.

“Amamiya-san…” Tears were welling in Arisato’s eyes.

“We saw him just a week ago.” Ochi’s voice was quiet.

“Oh no, no, no.” Sawai had spilled tea down her front and not noticed. She, too, was on the verge of tears.

Ryuuji knew if they started bawling, he would too. He could already feel a lump forming in his throat. “The wake is tomorrow,” he said quickly, “and Ren wanted me to leave you his phone number. We’re… he’s keeping Jun’s.”

None of the girls seemed to hear or care at the moment that they still had jobs or a new boss, and Ryuuji understood that. Jun-san had been beloved by his employees. Ryuuji had been regaled more than once by stories of birthday gifts, Valentine’s chocolates, Christmas presents, thank you cards, all from Ochi, Arisato, and Sawai. Ren often said Tatsuya-san complained they were trying to steal Jun-san from him.

Sawai was openly crying now, and Arisato was trying hard not to. Ochi had her arms around Sawai.

“If you’d like to take the rest of the day off, Ren said you’ll still be paid. Tomorrow and the day after － that’s the funeral － he wants the store closed.” Ryuuji was getting teary looking at the girls. “You can come in this weekend but Ren doesn’t expect you to. He said to open like normal again on Monday.” Relaying Ren’s words, straight instructions, was helping Ryuuji keep his emotions at bay, even if his eyes watered a little.

Arisato seemed to have the only clear head at the moment, or at least the presence of mind to run on auto. She found a pencil and a scrap of paper and wrote down what Ryuuji had told them. On another bit of paper, very neatly, she printed Ren’s name and phone number and, after some deliberation, Ryuuji gave her his as well, which she dutifully wrote beneath Ren’s. He watched her take it to the office and carefully pin it to the corkboard on the wall. And then he watched her make a new cup of tea, and pluck a white flower from one of the displays, and place them in the center of the counter.

She looked at Sawai and Ochi. “Usagi-chan. Naru-chan. I think I want to take the day off.” She wiped at her eyes. “I want to go shopping for Amamiya-san’s family for tomorrow, and I think we should make a small shrine for Amamiya-san for the shop.”

Ochi smiled and wiped her own eyes. “Minako-chan, that’s a great idea!” 

Sawai blew her nose into a paper towel. “We could do all the shopping during lunch and set up the shrine before you go to your other job!”

Arisato turned to Ryuuji. “Would that be okay, Sakamoto-san?”

Ryuuji nodded, experiencing a bit of deja vu. “Yeah, that’s fine.”

Arisato grinned. “Yay!” To Sawai and Ochi she said, “I know we just got some bad news, but think what Amamiya-san would want! He wouldn’t want us to sit here and cry － he’d want us to _do_ something. So let’s do that! We might cry, but we won’t be _moping_.”

“Right!”

Ryuuji felt like he was watching a girl version of Ren. A cheerier, chattier, girl Ren. He made a mental note to tell him － Ren would probably find it funny.

Before he left, he bowed to Arisato’s small tea and flower shrine. He was not a terribly religious man, and when his own father had died, he and his mother and sister had done the bare minimum, just the cremation, but he knew Jun-san would appreciate this. A finger of steam curled up from the cup as he thought that, as though in agreement, and the timing was so perfect, Ryuuji would swear Jun-san was playing a joke on him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, got a bit to unpack here for you.
> 
> As you no doubt have noticed, certain people are called different things depending on whose point of view the chapter is from. This is intentional, and is done with that person's relation to the POV character in mind. Japanese is a very formal language, and the speaker is always constantly aware of their status to other people through the language itself. Yu Narukami, Ren's senpai at work, is a good example of this. Ren and Yu are very close and call each other by their first names. Ryuuji, though he's familiar enough with Yu to have him as a contact in his phone, is not as close to him. He refers to Yu by his last name, as is normal in Japanese culture, but instead of a respectful -san tacked on at the end, he calls Yu Narukami-kun, the -kun indicating that they see each other as friends (albeit not close enough for first names). 
> 
> He does the same thing with Ren's fathers, calling them by their first names (though with -san), indicating that he was extremely close to them while they were alive. It is for this reason that Sawai Usagi stands out, and Ryuuji makes a note of it. Usagi immediately skips Lastname-san and goes straight for Firstname-kun/Firstname-chan when she addresses people, which can be seen as extremely rude and bordering on assuming a closeness that is not there. Usagi, who of course is from Sailor Moon, is just very obnoxiously friendly.
> 
> Ochi Naru is based on Osaka Naru from Sailor Moon, and very specifically, the live action Sailor Moon. This Naru is my favorite incarnation, being more perceptive, a bit snarky, and a little more done with Usagi's shit. She is named for the actress who played her in that series. My Usagi also comes from the live action, her last name being from her actress.
> 
> Many smaller Japanese businesses will close for lunch. This could be an entire store closing, as seen here, or closing certain sections of the store. When I worked at a Japanese cafe, the restaurant portion of the cafe closed for lunch (as in, you could not place new orders), but the register remained open to buy premade takeout. 
> 
> Ryuuji is hesitant to give his phone number to the girls (though ultimately does) because, while Jun and Tatsuya made it no secret that THEY were gay and together, Ryuuji and Ren have not been quite as open to the Jun's employees. (Yes, Jun named his shop Jun's.)


	7. Minako (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minako has some feelings on the day of the Amamiyas' funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hit you all with a lot at once, I know, (and those of you who like the story don't mind), but I did want to get to Minako (because I love her) before I started slowing down. The people and elements her chapter brings to the story are extremely important to the series as a whole.  
> *********
> 
> Additional tags: Bars, drinking, funerals, dead bodies, descriptions of injury

**有里美奈子** **Arisato Minako**

The Stray Sheep was one of many nondescript little bars tucked into one of many alleyways in Shibuya’s red light district, the only thing distinguishing its door from the dozens of others lining the street being the cartoon sheep’s head emblazoned across it in neon lights. 

Inside was a mixture of cozy and risqué, the waitresses in short skirts, the lights dim, and the alcohol free flowing. The bartender dripped in jewelry and compliments to both sexes, and the food was some of the best in this part of the city. The main attraction of the Stray Sheep, however, was Naoko-san.

Naoko-san was the bar’s beautiful hostess. Nearly six feet tall, she moved gracefully amongst the patrons, chatting to the regulars, refilling a drink here or fetching more napkins there. She had an extensive collection of kimonos and seemed to never wear the same kimono twice. Today she wore a stunning green kimono with a dark pink flowered obi. Her hair was piled high atop her head, carefully combed through with wax, and her makeup was immaculate, blended perfectly to soften her strong jaw and highlight her naturally double lidded eyes. Those eyes were now focused on the woman in front of her, fresh from her second job at the hospital, every muscle in her body screaming for bed and her face betraying none of it.

“Minako-chan,” Naoko-san said sympathetically, her voice an unnatural pitch. “I’m so sorry about your boss.” She reached over and clasped Minako’s hands in her own; they were at least twice the size of Minako’s, with nails bitten to the quick. “He was so good to you.”

The bartender, clad all in black down to even his own nails, placed a drink in front of her. 

“On the house,” he said.

“Thank you, Eikichi-kun.” Minako smiled weakly. She was not a big drinker, but she felt tonight warranted alcohol. She still couldn’t believe Amamiya-san was dead. He couldn’t be. He wasn’t sick. She’d seen him just last week. He’d mentioned wanting to talk to her about new responsibilities when he got back. She and Usagi and Naru had _suggested_ the trip to Okina, for Amamiya-san’s husband’s birthday. He’d even called them, just three days ago, to check in － Minako had _spoken_ to him! That couldn’t be the last conversation she’d ever have with him, about the Okumura order and the register drawer jamming!

“Hey.” 

Naoko-san’s voice was soft, a little deeper than before. “Don’t cry, Minako-chan.” She reached for a napkin. “Come on. I’ll send Shinji on a break, okay? You head on to the back. I’ll let him know.”

Minako took the napkin but shook her head. “No, no. Don’t interrupt his work on my account.” She wiped her eyes quickly and smiled. “I’m okay, see?”

Naoko-san and Eikichi exchanged a glance, and Eikichi gestured for Minako to follow him along the bar. “Now, now, Minako-chan. Shinji-kun is the one who needs _you_. You’re all he ever talks about, you know.” 

Eikichi stopped at the door to the kitchen and nodded towards it. “Do us all a favor, _darling_ , and go see the lovesick fool.”

Minako sniffled a bit and laughed. “Okay. Sure. Just to save your sanity, Eikichi-kun.”

“A-ri-ga- _to,_ ” Eikichi breathed, giving an exaggerated bow.

The smells of hokke and eihire assaulted Minako as she slipped past him into the kitchen. The air was stifling and as Minako looked around, she caught sight of Shion depositing dishes in one of the sinks. Shion was the Stray Sheep’s most popular waitress. Tall and leggy, flirty with men and gossipy with women, Shion was everyone’s older sister, and many regulars called her that. 

Shion finished at the sink and dried her hands. She picked up a fresh tray from a waiting stack and piled it high with steaming dishes, and then nearly dropped them all in surprise upon seeing Minako.

“Minako-chan!” she exclaimed, steadying a precariously balanced bowl. “Didn’t expect to see you here!”

Minako grinned. “Sorry for the scare, Oneechan.”

Oneechan swatted at her playfully. “Shinjiro-kun is in the walk-in,” she said. “He’ll be right out. Tadakichi is under the table though, and Shinjiro hasn’t scratched his ears _all night_.” She turned her face into a look of horrified concern.

“Oh no!” Minako laughed and let Oneechan through before making her way over to the small table where the employees sometimes took their breaks. Indeed, underneath lay the shiba inu, who cracked an eye open at her approach.

“Hey Tada,” she cooed, kneeling down, and the dog raised his head, tail wagging. “Has Shinjiro been ignoring you tonight? That’s so mean of him!” She reached out and gave him a scratch behind the ears, and Tadakichi made a noise of contentment. Minako had always wanted a dog when she was little, and in moments like this she was reminded why. She felt a little better just for running her hand through Tada’s fur. 

“How could he ignore someone so _cute_? It’s a crime!” 

Tadakichi leaned heavily into her hand, as if in agreement.

“Because he’s a pest,” came a voice behind her, and Minako looked over her shoulder to see Shinjiro, her Shinjiro, towering above her. He’d said it with affection, and extended both that affection and his hand out to her, helping her back to her feet. 

“He’s been begging all night,” Shinjiro groused, and everything about him was warm and familiar. The timbre of his voice. His long hair, damp now from the kitchen heat. His strong, calloused hand holding hers. Minako looked up at him, into his kind eyes, and was suddenly struck with the memory of the first time they’d met. It had been when her brother had been admitted as a permanent patient. Her friends Yosuke and Hina had wanted to cheer her up and had taken her out for a night on the town in Shibuya. They had danced in several of the clubs and drank in each － drank way too much, really. Minako had insisted she could find the subway home － and in her defense, she hadn’t been far off! － but she had gotten a little lost, ending up about a block away from the subway entrance and not far from the Stray Sheep. She would never forget how scared she’d felt when she’d seen the two hulking figures walking towards her that night.

It had been Naoto and Shinjiro. Shinjiro had called out to her, his voice hoarse. As he approached, Minako could see how rough he looked, and not in a “rough around the edges” sort of way. He’d had a large, thick bandage covering one side of his face, and a small one taped over his eyebrow. The eye underneath had been smothered by a yellowish bruise, and Minako suspected that it had recently been black. The hand he’d reached out to her was bandaged too, from the knuckles all the way to the wrist. 

He’d looked haunted back then and tough, but he’d reached out to her with kindness, the same kindness he was looking at her with now, and asked if she needed help, if she was okay, and Minako looked at Shinjiro now, healed and healthy and hers, and what if she lost him too? She hadn’t expected to lose Amamiya-san. She hadn’t expected her brother to take ill, to become so sick he had to live permanently in the hospital and would probably die there. She felt ten years old, grasping at Minato’s hand in the wreckage of their parents’ car, waiting for someone, anyone, to rescue them, crying for their parents who would not answer, their father having perished on impact and their mother passing away in the hospital that night; and now she was losing her brother too, but at least she _knew_ about that, about his illness － Amamiya-san’s death happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly －

“Minako?” Shinjiro brought his hand to her face gently. It came away wet. “Mina, what’s wrong?”

Minako quickly pressed her face into his chest, hiding from his concern. She was too raw, she hurt too much, to explain properly, she just needed a moment to calm herself. She breathed deeply, taking in the smells of steam and pepper, and oil and soap, and something else, something wholly _Shinjiro_. His arms went around her － he didn’t know why, but she needed comfort, and he would hold her as long as she needed to feel better.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” she breathed, and he pressed his lips to her hair in response. Tadakichi nudged at her leg and whined, in concern Minako liked to think, and that made her feel loved too.

“My boss died,” she said finally, composed once more. “His wake is tomorrow.”

“Oh Mina…” Shinjiro’s arms hugged her a little tighter. He knew － about her parents, about Minato. He knew how she had loved Amamiya-san, how close they had been. He didn’t apologize － it wasn’t his fault, it wouldn’t fix anything or bring Amamiya-san back. He just held her, and once Oneechan started calling back orders, he sat her down at the table, and kissed her forehead, and made her dinner. 

“Keep an eye on her, Tada,” he ordered, and Tadakichi obediently laid down at Minako’s feet while she ate, moreso to please Shinjiro than because she was really hungry.

She helped Shinjiro with dishes when she was done, though he insisted repeatedly she didn’t have to, go sit down, and “this is my job, Minako!” but she hated to be idle while he was working, to be useless. Shinjiro eventually had Oneechan pull her back into the bar － “don’t let her help, Shion, just keep her company!” － and Minako chatted with Eikichi and Oneechan and Naoko-san until the Stray Sheep closed for the night.

“Go on home, Shinjiro,” said Naoko-san, counting out the money in the register, a task Minako was entrusted with at Jun’s. “We’ll clean up.”

“I’d like to go home early too, Auntie,” Eikichi said, batting his eyelashes. Nearly everyone called Naoko-san Auntie.

“The bar is disgusting and the glasses need washing,” she said without missing a beat, and didn’t look up with Eikichi cried, in mock anger, “Discrimination!”

“I’ll help you clean up,” Minako offered, suppressing a yawn. “I’ll go get a mop.”

“Minako.” Exasperation lined Shinjiro’s face. “You don’t _work_ here. Stop cleaning!”

“She can have a job here, right, Auntie?” Oneechan paused in her sweeping, a grin on her face. Shinjiro shot her a dirty look.

“I think she would distract Shinji-kun,” Naoko-san said, thumbing through her stack of bills.

“She don’t need to be out ‘til three in the morning every day,” Shinjiro grumbled. “She works hard enough. ‘Specially don’t need to put up with Mishina every day.”

“What did I do?” Eikichi protested.

“You’re a slut, Eikichi,” Oneechan said dryly.

“Not to you guys!”

Naoko-san laughed, and it was a real laugh, deep and loud, not the high pitched giggle she feigned for customers. She nodded to Shinjiro and Minako, and said in her real voice, “Go on, you two. Get out of here. Take Tada. Can’t have a dog in a restaurant overnight.”

“This place ain’t high end enough to be called a _restaurant_ , boss,” Eikichi commented, earning him a smack of Naoko-san’s kimono sleeve.

Giggling, Oneechan swatted at Minako and Shinjiro with her broom. “You heard the boss,” she said. “Out.”

Minako laughed. “Okay, okay. Goodnight, everyone.”

Shinjiro rolled his eyes and draped an arm over her. “Tada, come.” He held a hand up by way of parting on the way out, and Tadakichi trotted faithfully after them, excited to be out in the night air.

What Minako loved most about Shinjiro was his open heart. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d gotten off the subway at her stop, he would have called her to make sure she’d gotten home okay － but she didn’t, and he made no comment as the doors closed and she was still with him. 

They got off together at his stop and walked the streets of Yongen-Jaya, Tadakichi scampering off to do whatever it was dogs did. It was a quiet, clear night, some of the day’s heat abated. It nearly reminded Minako of her hometown, a place she could only recall in scraps of memory but which she always associated with the smell of rain and the stickiness of humidity. Shinjiro kept her close, as he always did in Yongen-Jaya. Yongen-Jaya wasn’t a bad place to live, but Shinjiro didn’t live in the best part of it, and for a long time after they’d started dating he wouldn’t take her there, even during the day. Sometimes Minako caught him checking over his shoulder, or she’d see him start at the sound of a motorcycle, and she’d be reminded again of everything he’d been through, and how far he’d come from them. How the kindness in him could not be stamped out.

Tadakichi was waiting for them at the entrance to Shinjiro’s building. Inside, the apartment was a little bare but cozy. There were two toothbrushes in a cup by the sink, and a small space in his dresser held a woman’s shirt and skirt and a clean pair of panties. He lent her a shirt to sleep in, leaving the room to give Tadakichi water so that she could change. And when the lights clicked off, Shinjiro gave her more room in his small twin bed than he gave himself, until Minako hooked a leg over his and pulled him over.

He smiled in the dark, and placed a gentle hand on her side. His shirt swallowed her. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked quietly, knowing it was still on her mind, that and her brother and everything else she took on. Shinjiro was the only person, besides Amamiya-san, who really knew her, who knew the pain and fear and loneliness she carried inside her.

She shook her head. She just wanted to sleep. Maybe this was all a terrible, terrible dream, and when she woke up, it would be Wednesday morning all over again, and Sakamoto-san would not come to Jun’s with that terrible, terrible news. 

“No.”

“Okay.”

And Shinjiro folded her into his arms and held her close, his face buried in her hair, and she fell asleep listening to the calming beat of his heart.

* * *

But it hadn’t been a dream, and Amamiya-san really had died. Minako dressed for the wake, and got off the subway in Kichijoji, and stood, heart beating so loudly, in a room full of people dressed in black. Black suits, black dresses, black kimonos. 

She didn’t like wakes. She didn’t know anyone who did, really. But wakes transported her back to when she was a little girl, when she’d lost her parents. She and her brother Minato had stood, alone and far too young, in stiff black kimonos at the head of the room as her parents’ friends and family stood in a line and offered condolences and sympathies. Minako stood in that same line now with Usagi and Naru, and the employees from Tatsuya-san’s garage, Ogata and Uotani. Mourners talked to each other － Minako saw her friend Hanamura Yosuke, with his boyfriend Narukami Yu, and forgot for a moment that Yu worked with Amamiya-san’s son － and to the priest and to the remaining Amamiyas. They talked to Mishima-san near the door, with his basket of black envelopes, and Mishima-san looked pale and withdrawn, nodding dimly and smiling less brightly at each incoming guest.

She felt very small in her itchy black dress, and thought about calling Shinjiro and saying she’d changed her mind, she did want him to come with her after all, and suddenly it was their turn to speak to the family, the Jun’s girls to the Amamiya children, and she nearly froze. 

Ren-san, her old friend and her new boss, stood pale and with dark circles under his eyes, greeting each guest politely, thanking them for each black envelope. Futaba-chan, her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes glassy, stood silent, unable to speak. She reminded Minako so much of herself at her own parents’ funeral. And the youngest, Shinya-kun, clearly trying to emulate his older brother and choking on his emotions. 

Naru saved her. She stepped forward, with Usagi on her other side, and Minako snapped back to reality. The three of them bowed as one.

“We worked for Amamiya-san at Jun’s,” she said, “and you have our deepest condolences. He was more than our employer, and we will miss him very much.” 

Ren-san and Shinya-kun bowed back in acknowledge. Poor Futaba-chan managed only a nod. "Thank you for your kind words," Shinya-kun murmured.

“Thank you, also, for being such good employees for our papa,” Ren-san said. “He often spoke highly of each of you.”

This made Usagi cry － full on, unable to stop, and she was not able to stop at the caskets and visit Amamiya-san and Tatsuya-san for the last time as she should, she was crying so hard. Naru bowed quickly, promising to return and speak properly, before escorting Usagi somewhere quiet to calm down. And Minako was left to face the caskets alone.

When their parents died, she and her brother had not been permitted to look inside the caskets. The uncle who’d taken them in thought it would traumatize them further to see their parents dead. It was something Minako had always regretted. She knew she had to look at Amamiya-san and Tatsuya-san. In memory of her parents, and because the Amamiyas were parents, and because of the coincidence that they had all died the same way. Maybe this was a second chance, a way to atone for not saying goodbye to her parents properly. She stepped closer, unsure what to expect.

The Amamiyas lay in identical coffins lined in white satin. Their skin was pale, but perhaps that was only the light and the satin they lay on. They both wore white kimonos, crossed right over left, and there the similarities stopped. 

Tatsuya-san’s face was tight, his hair combed and parted down the middle. He wore a leather jacket over his kimono. A picture of a black and red motorcycle lay in the casket, along with an acoustic guitar, a police badge, and an old photograph of a younger Tatsuya and someone who appeared to be his brother. 

Amamiya-san lay in a bed of yellow irises, one even clasped in his folded hands. His face was peaceful, his hair carefully combed away from it, and Minako frowned, because in life his hair had forever been falling into his eyes. His casket held several school projects done by their children, the birthday card she and the girls had given him this year (and this only made her more emotional), and an origami crane, its wings covered in writing. Minako bowed deeply before the couple and wished their spirits peace, and thanked Amamiya-san for everything he had done for her.

_I didn’t have a father for fourteen years until I met you. I had to navigate this world on my own. You helped me so much, Amamiya-san. I can never repay you for all of your time and advice. I can never repay your kindness. I will work hard at Jun’s with your son and make you proud._

She bowed again, and quietly slipped away to find Naru and Usagi. Or that’s what she told herself. In truth, she needed a moment. Amamiya-san had been not just an employer but a father figure to her for the past six years, and his death had left her feeling just as empty as she had at ten years old.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minako's chapter marks the start of some of the most research done for this story. It was exhausting and difficult and a lot of it, for anything concerning the Stray Sheep, comes secondhand, because Japan's attitude towards anything non-heterosexual is, uh... not great. The funeral research went much more smoothly.  
> ********
> 
> The Stray Sheep and Shion: A reference to another Atlus title, Catherine. Shion's name does not betray it in the slightest, but were you folks ever to see my drawings, you would know right away that she is based on Erika from Catherine.
> 
> Red light district: Unfortunately, nearly anything LGBTQ-friendly in Japan (openly so, anyway) that I found is nearly always relegated to the red light districts. This includes anywhere from very vanilla bars that dgaf if two same sex people kiss to gay clubs, drag shows, and less savory exploits.
> 
> Hokke and eihire: Popular bar foods. Hokke is grilled mackerel and eihire is dried stingray fin sliced and served with mayo. (Japanese mayo is delicious.) Bar food is an entire cuisine unto its own!
> 
> Black envelopes: I'll talk more about Japanese funerals in the next chapters, but an important custom in them is black envelopes. These are special envelopes one purchases for the deceased's family and places a cash gift inside. They are given to someone at the funeral (either an employee or someone appointed by the family － never the family themselves, this is very rude), who notes the name of the giver and the amount given, so that the family may send a thank you card after the mourning period. This is a very important part of Japanese mourning etiquette. 
> 
> Inside the caskets: This is a little out of the ordinary. Yes, it is normal to place one or two things considered representative of the deceased in the casket. The Amamiya kids filled the caskets with things their dads had loved or things that had meant something to them.


	8. Ren (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren attends the funeral of his fathers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags: Funerals, bad coping mechanisms, ashes, human remains.

**雨宮蓮** **Amamiya Ren**

After the funeral, the Amamiyas and Ryuuji would return to the Amamiya family home for a quiet, solemn dinner. Ren was not particularly concerned if that was the right and proper way to conduct a funeral. He only wanted one more dinner in his childhood home before taking his siblings to the apartment he shared with Ryuuji. 

They had all been avoiding their parents’ room. It had been the last to be packed, and Ren still had a few more things to put away, including his fathers’ big Western-style bed. But this was the last night in the Amamiya house, and Ren couldn’t help himself. He told himself to move his feet. But here he was, outside the double doors to Tatsuya and Jun’s room, and he was a child again who’d had a nightmare, who wanted nothing more than to crawl under the sheets with his parents until the memory had faded and he had been lulled back to sleep.

Ren opened the door.

He had managed to clear away much of his parents’ clutter. Photographs and trinkets had been carefully wrapped and brought to Yongen-Jaya. He had sobbed, harder and longer than he cared to admit, at cleaning out the closet, the clothes saturated with the smells of Aporo Garage, Tatsuya’s cologne, Jun’s flowery scent. The furniture still remained, as did the bed, and Ren saw he wasn’t alone in feeling lonely tonight.

Futaba, her hair long and greasy and everywhere (when had she last bathed?), was curled in the center of the king-sized bed. Her eyes were red and puffy, her face pressed into one of the pillows. She hadn’t even stirred at Ren’s entrance. 

Ren padded quietly across the room and sat on the right side of the bed. Tatsuya’s side. Futaba had stolen Tatsuya’s pillow, he saw now. She looked at him with glassy eyes, seeing him without actually seeing him.

He felt shitty just then. He’d been so busy, so  _ adult _ , this week － meeting with that lawyer whose number Ann gave him, packing, making funeral arrangements － that he’d hardly had time to check in on his own siblings. Futaba was not okay. For fuck’s sake, she was still in her school uniform, she hadn’t even changed her clothes from the day he’d dropped that bomb on her. And he hadn’t noticed, he hadn’t noticed at all. He’d fed her and Shinya, thanks to Mrs Sakamoto’s cooking, but he hadn’t looked after them, and how the  _ fuck _ was he supposed to  _ parent _ them if he didn’t even notice that his sister had been wearing the same clothes for almost a week?

Ren slid under the covers － and it was too hot for covers (he’d forgotten about the air conditioning, didn't have it in his apartment) and crushed his sister to him, whispering apologies over and over into her hair. Their tousan’s pillow created a barrier between them but neither was willing to remove it, Ren feeling like it would be akin to tossing Tatsuya away and Futaba unable to let go, but Futaba let herself be pulled close, and almost immediately the tears came. Ren couldn’t say whose they were, they were both crying, and Futaba was sobbing, hysterical, holding their tousan’s pillow so tightly she could split it in half.

He didn’t know when they’d fallen asleep, only that his sister had cried herself out and gone first. He was roused by the feeling of his glasses being gently removed from his face, the soft  _ plink _ as they were set on the nightstand. Blearily he opened his eyes to see Shinya standing above him, and Ren felt he hadn’t seen his little brother for days. 

Shinya looked  _ tired _ . He looked older than he was. His eyes were ringed in dark circles, the corners of his mouth pulled down in a not quite frown… Ren wondered what time it was, before remembering he’d packed up the clock.

He scooted Futaba and Tatsuya’s pillow over and Shinya climbed into bed, a child again like his siblings. He reached over Ren’s head to pull Jun’s pillow from where it threatened to fall over the side, and the action was nearly enough to make Ren cry again, as Shinya hugged the pillow to himself, because Shinya and Jun got along rarely, were always arguing, always at each other’s throats. Ren wondered what Shinya had said to their papa the last time they’d talked. 

He threw his arm around his brother and pulled him close, and Shinya let him. Shinya seemed to be waiting for it, because he wilted against his brother, his eyes filling with tears, and he broke in his own way, quietly. It ripped the wound in Ren’s heart wider, because he hadn’t even thought about Shinya. Had  _ anyone _ thought about Shinya? About how Shinya was taking this? 

Ren felt like such a piece of shit.

Jun’s pillow was placed between him and his brother after several moments, not a barrier but akin to another person. Shinya leaned into Ren over the pillow, hugging him close the way he hadn’t since he was a little boy, and that night they were all children again, sharing the same awful nightmare, seeking solace from their pillow parents in the middle of the night. 

When Ren returned to the room to pack the remnants, he carefully packed his parents’ pillows. He didn’t think he, his sister, and brother could have gotten through that horrible night without them.

* * *

Ren spent the day of the funeral in a daze. 

He dressed himself in a plain black kimono, and helped his sister and brother with theirs. It was the first time Futaba or Shinya had ever worn a kimono.

He thanked the guests. He stood with his sister and brother, as children of the deceased, at the head of the room, and spoke to the priest, as new head of the Amamiya family. He had arranged for Ryuuji and Yuuki to do…  _ something _ , because of their closeness to his fathers, but if he were asked in the moment, he couldn’t have said what it was he had told them to do.

Futaba said not a word the entire day. She had showered, and Ren had brushed her long hair and braided it like when they were young. She did not go near the caskets. Ren thought she was running on autopilot.

Shinya seemed to be fairing a little better. When Ren faltered, Shinya was there at his side, to remember the guest’s name, to thank them. In his hazy state, Ren was proud.

“Hey.” 

A hand touched him lightly on the arm and Ren jolted, but it was only Ryuuji. Ryuuji in his unadorned black kimono, deliberately chosen to signify that he, too, was part of this family. That he stood with Ren. 

Ryuuji allowed himself a small touch of Ren’s hand with his littlest finger before pulling back. Ren found himself wanting the touch back. Fuck what these people thought. But he didn’t take his boyfriend’s hand.

“You doing okay?” Ryuuji asked softly.

“Mm.”

They both bowed, Ryuuji a step behind him, as one of Tatsuya’s friends interrupted to give their condolences. Ren thanked him and his wife with a forced smile that drew no comment.

“You can take a break if you need,” his boyfriend murmured. “You wanna step away? Get some air?”

Ren shook his head. “I just want to get this part over with.”

And Ryuuji understood, and melted away to find Yuuki and do whatever it was Ren had asked him to do previously.

The Mishimas had been one of the first groups to arrive, Yuuki’s mother absolutely devastated. (This funeral was one of the few times Ren had ever seen Mishima-san treat his wife kindly. She leaned on his arm, pressing a handkerchief to her eyes, and he consoled her softly, like a couple still in love.) Mrs Sakamoto arrived on her son’s arm, and apologized immediately for the (barely noticeable) embroidery on her black kimono. (Ren didn’t care and hugged her fiercely. In fact, she was the only person he did hug all day.)

Many of his own friends attended, even if they hadn’t met his fathers. Some were not even aware he had two fathers, but if they objected to that, they kept their reactions to themselves. Ren couldn’t begin to name them all, but he was sure he saw at least Ann, because he saw someone hug Mrs Sakamoto who was not Ryuuji.

A surprising number of his colleagues were there. His entire unit attended, dressed sharply in black suits, and several older men from other departments who had worked with his father. The elders lingered at Tatsuya’s casket moreso than with the Amamiya children, and Makoto-san told him privately that they had asked her permission to apologize to Tatsuya.

Yu-senpai bowed deeply to the Amamiya children, as did his partner Yosuke-kun, and Ren smiled his only real smile of the day when their daughter, in a black dress and a black ribbon in her hair, sat with him and regaled him with a fascinating tale of how her Yassan tried to smuggle a cat home and her Touchan had chased them both out. (It had taken Ren a moment to remember that Yu and Yosuke-kun were from the country, and he had to ask their daughter what on Earth a yassan and a touchan were. He laughed when she told him that was what she called her fathers.) Yu and Yosuke-kun spent the story time with some of their older colleagues at the caskets, bowing deeply before them, clearly not wanting their daughter to hear the conversation.

Ren could not remember all of the faces. He knew the Jun’s girls were there, followed by the Aporo Garage workers. Many and more of his parents’ friends. The owner of the bar his parents frequented, now a favorite of his and Ryuuji’s, dressed in a plain black kimono, her face bare. 

He did not see a single member of Tatsuya or Jun’s families. The only one he had ever met was his uncle Katsuya, but Katsuya had died when Ren was fourteen, and they had not been permitted to attend his funeral. He didn’t know who Jun had been before he’d married Tatsuya, what his family name had been － that was just something that was not discussed － but there was no one in the funeral hall he did not recognize, no one who looked like Jun.

* * *

A Japanese funeral concludes with the burning of the deceased, the sorting of bones into an urn, and the internment of those bones in a family plot. These were supposed to be done by the family of the deceased, but Ren had a loose definition of family, and these things were done by the Amamiya children, the Mishimas, and the Sakamotos. Ren had decided, with Ryuuji’s help, that his parents would share one urn and their ashes one burial plot, and judging from their faces when he told his siblings, he had made a good decision. He felt it was the first good decision he’d made all week. 

The sorting of the bones was a time for stories, for remembering the deceased, and it was Yuuki, of all people, who spoke first. He reached for a long bone with his long chopsticks and carefully placed it in the urn before speaking.

“Ren,” he started. “Do you remember Aporororo?”

And Ren blinked, and a small chuckle escaped him. “Don’t.”

“What’s Apororo… whatsit?” Ryuuji asked, carefully pulling the items that had not burned from the ashes. These would be placed in the urn with the bones as well.

Yuuki grinned. “Yeah, Ren,” he goaded. “What’s Aporororo?”

Shinya was looking at him with interest, and even Futaba was leaning closer.

“It sounds a bit like your father’s shop,” Mishima-san observed. “Aporo.”

Yuuki laughed, which made Ren laugh.

“It’s how the shop got its name!” he said between giggles. “I used… I used to d-draw, right?”

“It was really bad,” Yuuki gasped out. “He really couldn’t draw.”

“Shut up!” Ren almost dropped the bone piece he’d fished out, a small slender one. “It was when… when that cartoon was out? The Bono... “ (he fell into laughter again here) “...the Bononono one.”

“Bononono?” Shinya raised an eyebrow. “Sounds dumb.”

“It was so dumb!” 

“This guy,” said Yuuki, “drew this… this big red…  _ thing _ \--”

“He was a supermonster!”

“Big red thing,” Yuuki insisted. “And he… he said it could kick Bononono’s butt. He made… made Jun-san….”

“I had Papa sew me and Yuuki  _ costumes _ ,” Ren blurted, going red. “So T-Tousan…. he names the garage after it!”

“Is that what that silly red mascot is?” Mrs Mishima gasped.

“Mom! How did you not  _ know _ ?” Yuuki stared at her incredulously.

“I thought it was after the candy!”

“ _ Mom! _ ”

Shinya used his chopsticks to draw the Aporo mascot in the ash (he didn’t think Tatsuya would mind), and then gave it glasses and a mop of messy hair. He snorted and nudged Futaba, who managed to find it funny despite herself. (Both had been too young to remember Aporororo.)

“Tatsuya-san was great,” Ryuuji said, wiping an eye with the pad of his thumb. “He had the best sense of humor.”

“He was always playing jokes on Papa,” Shinya added.

“But your papa would get him back,” Mrs Mishima said. “All those riddles and those smart jokes. He’d tell me your tousan used to be a dumb jock.”

“He told me he was,” Ryuuji said. 

“When I brought Ryuuji home, Tousan found out Ryuuji did track in school and that’s all we talked about for the rest of dinner,” Ren laughed. “How many awards he won, how many meets he did, is he still doing it…”

“Never knew there were so many ways to  _ run _ ,” Shinya deadpanned. “My mind was blown that night.”

“Oh he spoke to me about it too, when we met,” Mrs Sakamoto chimed in. “Told me my Ryuuji was a fine young man, if he could stay dedicated to something for so long like that.” She beamed. 

“Jun-san told me  _ I _ was a fine young man,” Yuuki gasped. 

“That’s okay, though.” Ren was quick to play peacemaker in this mock fight. “Ryuuji’s a meathead and you’re  _ refined _ . Just like Tousan and Papa”

“I’m not a meathead!”

“Ryuuji, who wrote  _ The Tale of Genji _ ?”

Ryuuji was silent. Mishima-san laughed. 

“C’mon, son, it’s one of the most famous books in history!”

“Books don’t mean nothin’,” Ryuuji grumbled, carefully lowering Tatsuya’s police badge into the urn. At a familiar giggle he whirled around and his jaw dropped. “Mama, don’t  _ laugh _ !”

“I’m sorry, Jiji,” Mrs Sakamoto said around her giggles and her hand. “I love you.”

“Everyone’s against me!”

“Ryuuji.” Yuuki waved to get his attention. “Who wrote  _ Dragonball Z _ ?”

“Toriyama Akira,” Ryuuji said at once.

“There we go!” Ren cheered. “You know books!”

“Manga isn’t the same--”

“Dad, let him have this.”

And on it went, everyone offering a story or two or three about Jun and Tatsuya, poking fun at them or at each other, and it wasn’t as terrible as Ren thought it would be. In fact, it was almost a little fun. Mrs Sakamoto and the Mishimas had been to several funerals and knew how important it was to keep the air light, the memories light, once the majority of people had left, and without meaning to, the dynamic of power shifted slightly. Ren suddenly wasn’t shouldering this entire funeral alone. The Mishimas, who had known his parents longer than he had been alive, and Mrs Sakamoto, who had accepted him as her own once he began dating Ryuuji, stepped in during the bone sorting. Ren didn’t feel so much like he was drowning. He wished he had called the Mishimas sooner. He knew they must be hurting too.

Yuuki’s parents offered their home for dinner after the bones had been sorted (the Amamiyas had no family plot, and would be bringing the bones home tonight), but Ren felt it was important for them to retreat to his apartment. He was the head of his family now, just as Mrs Sakamoto was the head of hers and Mishima-san the head of his. So they crammed into the apartment he shared with Ryuuji － and now his siblings too － in Yongen-Jaya, all eight of them, and Mishima-san ordered sushi for them (“You may not pay me back, Ren. You’ve had enough to worry about today.”) and Mrs Sakamoto sat quietly with Futaba and talked about where in the apartment they would set up the new shrine and where the urn would fit until its burial. (Futaba had not let go of the urn since the lid had been put on.)

Ren still felt as though this week had been a terrible, awful, horrible dream. He felt as though if he went to sleep in his own home, in his own bed, he would wake up the next morning and his dads would be safely at home in Kichijoji, Tatsuya tinkering with his Waifu at the front gate, Jun tending to his prized flower garden and window boxes. Looking at Shinya (who was beginning to retreat into himself) and Futaba (who’d retreated a week ago), he knew they felt the same way. Like maybe if they squeezed their eyes shut tight enough, when they opened them, the Mishimas and Yuuki and Mrs Sakamoto would be gone, and in their place would be Tatsuya and Jun, Tatsuya talking too loudly and Jun fussing over this or that.

“Ren-Ren,” came a murmur in his ear, and suddenly there was Ryuuji. He looked around. Ryuuji’s mother and all the Mishimas had gone. Had it worked? Ren made to get up, he swung his leg up － and it caught on fabric. 

He looked down.

He was still wearing his black kimono.

Ryuuji, kneeling beside him, was still wearing a black kimono.

“Ren-Ren,” Ryuuji said again, and Ren sighed. “C’mon. It’s late.” He kissed Ren’s forehead. “Shinya and Futaba went to bed. I managed to pry the urn from Futaba.” He indicated the coffee table, where the heavy urn loomed. 

“Mama wanted to stay the night,” Ryuuji continued, helping Ren up. He seemed to know Ren was still out of it. “She’s worried. I told her I’d call her tomorrow.” 

Ren nodded mutely.

He let his boyfriend wrap an arm around his shoulders. He let his boyfriend take his hand. He said nothing as Ryuuji led them to their room and closed the door. He couldn’t think anymore.

He stood uselessly in the middle of the room, seeing but not seeing. Ryuuji sat on the edge of their bed.  _ So many people in the funeral hall. _ Tossing his balled up socks away.  _ Tatsuya and Jun’s faces, beautifully stitched back together. _ Ryuuji was looking at him.  _ Futaba sobbing in Tousan and Papa’s bed. _ Ryuuji was saying something.  _ 500 pounds of flesh and wood going into the flames, just to spit out four pounds of ash and bone and crap. _ He couldn’t move.  _ Tatsuya and Jun dead at the morgue, covered in blood and debris. _ Ryuuji put a hand on his shoulder; he didn’t feel it.  _ Shinya in his school uniform, screaming at him, while Futaba sat numbly at the table. _ Ryuuji stood in front of him. His lips formed the word “Ren?”  _ The white chrysanthemum bouquets, bought by the Jun’s and Aporo employees. _ His hands found the front of Ryuuji’s kimono.  _ Sixteen pairs of chopsticks, each made of one bamboo and one willow, sifting through the ash of his fathers’ coffins and flesh and muscle. _ His face was hot, and Ryuuji’s blurred.  _ Ryuuji, never far, never far this entire week, never wavering, never breaking.  _ Ryuuji wrapped him in his arms.  _ Mrs Sakamoto hugging him so tightly. _ He buried his face in his boyfriend’s kimono, gripping the fabric hard.  _ Those officers from the precinct, Tatsuya’s former colleagues, apologizing too late for crimes committed long ago. _ If he let go, he was lost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Ope for pointing out I'd used the wrong kanji for Ren's name. I'd written out the kanji and then typed them and I'd written Ren's name wrong in my notes.  
> ******
> 
> Yassan and Touchan are two additional ways to say "father" in Japanese. Touchan is a childish way to say "otousan" (appropriate for a small child), and (o)yassan is father in the Osaka dialect.
> 
> All Japanese are cremated. The funeral service helps the family members pick through the ashes to be sure that all bones are properly gathered and placed in an urn for burial. Bones are extremely important, and from my research, it seems that cremation does not always incinerate bones properly like it does in other parts of the world? They're not full bones, merely fragments, but everything must be gathered into the urn with special chopsticks, and this is seen as a moment of bonding for the family, like how a funeral reception might be in the West. Stories and jokes about the deceased are told, and high spirits are encouraged.
> 
> Bononono is a reference to Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, an anime and manga series that is actually quite good but with a name I've always found very silly.
> 
> Mrs Mishima thinks Tatsuya named his garage after Apollo candies (Aporo in Japanese) instead of Ren's childhood drawing Aporororo.
> 
> The Tale of Genji is an extremely famous work of classical literature written by Murasaki Shikibu. Not knowing who wrote it is sort of like not knowing who wrote, say, Oliver Twist or Little Women or Dracula.
> 
> Many homes have a small altar for the deceased. In the Shinto religion, this shrine is called a tamaya; in Buddhism, it is called a butsudan.


	9. Goro (Part 1)

**明智吾郎** **Akechi Goro**

“I would like to put forth Akechi Goro as a suspect.”

A collective groan swept the conference room. Goro himself sighed. Kamiya looked unbothered; it was not the first time he’d said that. 

Kamiya Kenichi was the oddest person Goro had ever known. A private consultant for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department with his own office, Kamiya kept his own hours and came in rarely, using the time in-house to sift through all their district’s current cases for the choicest ones, give his input at department meetings on those cases, and squander his time at the cafeteria ordering soft serve ice cream. He was deathly pale and always sported dark, bruise-like circles under his eyes, like he didn’t sleep. His clothing was always inappropriate for their line of work, jeans and T-shirts that were wrinkled more often than not. Kamiya frequently slumped in his chair like a petulant child and liked to indulge in junk food or overpriced drinks sipped through funny straws. And from the day they’d met, he’d had it out for Goro.

  
“Reason?” Adachi asked, with an enormous amount of side-eye. Adachi had made her feelings known about Kamiya more than once (Goro had heard a rumor that she’d petitioned Commissioner Sato-san to fire Kamiya twice), and if anyone deserved his suspicions, it was Adachi, in Goro’s opinion. Kamiya apparently felt differently, and calmly continued to observe Goro as he sipped a caramel coffee drink loaded with whipped cream and chocolate drizzle through a crazy straw.

“He was seen in the area the night of the murder.” 

Kamiya produced a file of grainy photographs, likely taken from a traffic camera. “Furthermore, Akechi-kun is known to take the 9:03pm subway home to Azaba-Juuban every night, but on the night of the murder, he took an earlier train － the 7:23, to Yongen-Jaya, and did not return to his apartment in Azaba-Juuban until 10:41pm.” 

He swirled his straw around in his drink and then took another sip. 

“The murder, as you know, Commissioner, took place in Yongen-Jaya at 8:44pm. There was plenty of time for Akechi-kun to murder the victim, hide the weapon, and catch the subway home.”

Sato-san rubbed at her temples. Minazuki and Kurogami, seated far enough away that she did not hear (but close enough to Goro that he did) were whispering to each other “Does he have to do this every time?” and “What sort of grudge does have against Akechi anyway?” Kamiya was brilliant, and had solved many an impossible case, but putting up with his strange Goro obsession was less than ideal. 

“Akechi,” the commissioner sighed. “What do you put forth in defense?” 

There was no point in putting him on the suspect list anymore; Commissioner Sato-san just let him explain why he did not do it and they all moved on now.

“I was visiting with Amamiya-kun.” 

Goro was as frustrated as his colleagues. He’d wanted to hear Kamiya’s real suspicions, not another accusation against himself. 

“His siblings are adjusting as well as can be expected to the move and have returned to school,” he continued. “Amamiya-kun himself will return to work the day after tomorrow.”

“Fantastic news!” Sato-san actually clapped and threw her hands in her air; and Goro was sure the smile on her face was the first one that had crossed her face all day.

Narukami was grinning. “We could _really_ use his input,” he chirped, finished his third coffee of the day. (Narukami, like many other cops, was a caffeine addict, and Goro sometimes worried about his health.)

Sato-san’s smile disappeared at once, her mouth falling into a thin line. 

“Yes,” she muttered. “We could.” Louder, she demanded, “Does anyone have any _plausible_ suspects?”

“Akechi is plausible,” Kamiya insisted. No one paid him any mind.

“Nothing, Commissioner,” Narukami admitted. “Victim had no noticeable entry or exit wounds, yet toxicology reports say the victim possessed tetrodotoxin in his system.”

“Could it be Shiryō?”

Everyone present knew that this wasn’t a real question, that Sato-san doubted the gang’s involvement, but given the Shiryō Syndicate’s recent activity levels, she had to at least ask in the attempt to cover all her bases.

“That would be extremely unlikely, Commissioner,” Goro answered. “The cause of death is not something we have seen from them before. Shiryō prefers ambush shootouts. Or knifings, for single targets.”

“That new boss － Makigami － seems to be a fan of beating people to death,” Kurogami put forth.

“I’ve heard a rumor Shiryō’s been experimenting with explosives,” Narukami said helpfully, drumming his fingers on the sides of his coffee cup.

“Fucking hell, that’s all we need,” Sato-san grumbled. “Where did they get the brains to pull that off?”

“The female Makigami is intelligent enough,” Kamiya offered. “I’ve enough information to gather that she is a competent ha－”

“I wasn’t seriously asking,” the commissioner cut in. “Yet.” 

Sato-san clapped her hands loudly over the Shiryō chatter. There was always Shiryō chatter in Tokyo Met. “Focus! Do we have any suspects _at all_ for this victim’s death? For _any_ of the deaths?”

“No, Commissioner,” the unit replied, in a poor imitation chorus. 

“Find one! I want a name to give these people’s families! This is our job!” 

Sato-san fixed each and every one of them a steely look. Goro found himself shrinking back involuntarily in his chair. 

“I want to close this fucking investigation!” She glared at them all for several beats before lowering her eyes, brows still furrowed, and collecting her things. 

“Dismissed.”

Goro felt he could breathe again, heard the quiet sounds of colleagues who felt they could relax. Heard them softly start to talk amongst themselves as they collected their notes, case files, pens. He heard Minazuki give Adachi a gentle ribbing for “lookin’ like you were about to piss yourself just now!” and Narukami chuckling.

As he stood up to leave, Sato-san looked up. “Oh, Akechi. See me in my office.” And then she walked out.

Goro sighed inwardly. His colleagues were childish. He knew without looking that some of the unit were exchanging glances. That Kamiya’s eyes had narrowed and Adachi’s had rolled. He heard Minazuki stifle a chuckle, and Kurogami marvel “shit, it’s not even 10am.” 

Goro strode past them all out of the room.

Many of the detectives in the Homicide department, where he worked, and no doubt in Tokyo Met as a whole, believed Commissioner Sato-san played favorites, or that she and him were in some sort of illicit relationship. He couldn’t blame them, really － he worked very closely with her, and often in her office. But Goro was not well liked within the department, even before the rumors started, and those rumors certainly did not help.

He waited seven minutes before leaving the unit. One of his colleagues laughed at the same moment. Goro immediately assumed it was at him, and resisted a powerful, immature urge to roll his eyes. Adachi was talking to someone from another unit in front of the copier, papers spitting out rapidly. Goro nodded politely to them, and received polite nods in return, and slipped out the glass doors into the hall.

A few offices lined the corridor － for private consultants like Kamiya and conferences with colleagues. Kamiya himself was in the middle of meticulously wiping down every square inch in his － something he did every time he came in. He probably spent most of his office time cleaning before doing any work at all, holding each case file with as few fingers as possible, as though contaminated. Goro nodded in what he hoped was a friendly manner as he walked past, but as usual, Kamiya did not return the gesture. Goro left him to his devices.

He stopped in front of the door bearing the nameplate COMMISSIONER. With her superiors occupying the adjoining building, Sato-san was the highest ranking officer in this one, and yet her office door looked no different than any other. Inside lay the difference: Sato-san’s office was a two room suite, her personal assistant the gatekeeper between the commissioner and her subordinates. The PA’s desk, however, was mercifully empty, and Goro gave thanks in silent prayer. He crossed the room in three steps and knocked.

“Come in. Shut the door.”

And Goro did.

Commissioner Sato-san was a minimalist, practical woman, and her office was minimalist and practical as well. She had kept the furniture from the old commissioner, and updated the computer, but otherwise Sato-san’s office held very little in terms of clutter. A framed painting on the wall of a tall glass vase holding long-stemmed blue flowers. A double frame on her desk with photos of her late father and grandfather, both in black and white, both police officers. Two darumas, side by side, one bearing two eyes and the other with only one. And sitting at the antique desk was Commissioner Sato-san, staring down at the case files they had just gone over.

“Goro.” His given name shot out of her before he’d even sat down. “This is the fourth murder. The fourth same cause of death. Who _is_ this asshole?”

Most people, when in this office, found his boss, Commissioner Sato-san, a fierce and formidable woman. As he pulled up a chair, Goro didn’t see the commissioner, but instead his friend, Sato Makoto. And Sato Makoto was worrying at her bottom lip with her teeth, her head in her hands, fingers threaded through her hair, pulling anxiously.

“Makoto, don’t do that,” Goro chided gently. “You’ll get a bald spot.”

“This whole investigation is giving me a bald spot,” Makoto lamented, but she did remove her hands, if only to slap the files shut.

If Ren were here, he’d make a joke. He’d say something witty. He’d make Makoto laugh and the tension dissipate. He was better with people than Goro was. Goro could read people and find motives, but interacting with people, endearing himself to them, wasn’t something he was particularly skilled at.

“We’ll all be bald by the end of this,” he joked, and knew immediately it was the wrong thing to say, even before Makoto put her head face down on her desk and groaned. 

“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry!”

After a few beats, Makoto sighed and lifted her head. “No,” she breathed. She blew her bangs out of her eyes and sat up again. Slumped in her chair. 

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “My superiors are putting a lot of pressure on me to catch this guy, and I can’t give them any information. It makes me look weak!” Her eyes widened and she whipped her head around to look at him. “Goro, what if I lose my job because I can’t find this asshole?”

“You’re not going to lose your job,” Goro assured her. “Makoto, you need to calm down. You’re going to have another panic attack.”

“You’re right.” Makoto nodded, either in agreement with him or herself, he wasn’t sure. “You’re right.” She took a couple of deep breaths, still nodding.

“Maybe you could ask to borrow some men from Vice?” Goro suggested, and was taken aback when Makoto rounded on him angrily.

“That would make me look _weak_ , Goro,” she snapped. “Mogi would have a field day.” 

Mogi was the head of Vice, and he’d been passed over in favor of Makoto for the position of commissioner. To say he was bitter was an understatement.

“Or it makes him look inept and self serving,” Goro countered. “Think about it. If you ask for his best men, they’ll do a great job. You know Mogi － he only recommends the less than ideal for department transfers. It will be plainly obvious that Mogi is denying these men any advancement out of Vice so that his department produces. Maybe one or two will request a transfer up here after getting a taste.”

Makoto was not convinced, but neither did she reject the idea. Rather, Goro could see her filing the idea away in her mind to peruse later.

“Now enough shop talk,” he said firmly. “It’s just stressing you out.” 

He reached for the translucent water bottle to her left and set it in front of her. 

“Drink your weird tea and let’s talk about something else,” he ordered.

To his surprise, Makoto actually listened to him. (He could count on one hand the amount of times he had persuaded the headstrong Makoto off her worry train.) She gave him the smallest of smiles and managed a few shaky sips from the water bottle. Makoto was health conscious and liked to bring a variety a tea-flavored health drinks to work in that bottle. Goro was not a fan of most of them (he felt their smells ranged from “damp wood” to “rotting trash”), but he’d been persuaded to try a few before (while pinching his nose closed) and they didn’t _taste_ terrible.

“How’s Ren doing?” she asked after several minutes. She sounded much calmer.

Goro paused. “He seems… off? I think it’s hitting him in bits and pieces.” 

He wasn’t quite _lying_ , but he felt guilty for keeping things from Makoto. They had known each other a long time. He owed her family quite a lot, and she was one of his few friends. He didn’t feel right lying to her. But at the same time, his friendship with Ren was something he held dear as well, and he didn’t feel right exposing what he had deduced about him during his visit.

Makoto nodded a little. “That’s quite common,” she mused. “So much of what his parents used to do now falls to him. Every new thing will bring back that hurt. My mother went through that when my father passed.” 

She tapped her fingers against the side of her water bottle. The smell emanating from the open lid was absolutely disgusting. 

“How are his siblings?”

Goro shook his head. “Between us, Mako,” he began (and he only called her Mako when divulging secrets), “they’re not doing well. I didn’t see Futaba at all. Shinya is combative and angry. There was an argument with Sakamoto, and when Ren stepped in, Shinya shouted at Ren too.”

Makoto frowned. Goro wrestled with his emotions. On the one hand, he had fulfilled his obligation to his friend Makoto. But on the other hand, he was sure he had said too much about his friend Ren. And he was feeling more guilty for talking about Ren’s family than he was happy for speaking to Makoto.

“He won’t be pleased to come to back to this mess,” Makoto was saying, somewhat unhappily. “Should I put him on desk duty?”

“I think that would make it worse.” Goro was wary of the conversation turning back to work, but he did not want to think about his own feelings at the moment. “He’ll think you’re babying him. Put him to work as normal.”

She thought for a moment. “I’ll have Narukami take him out the first few days. They’re close.”

Goro hid his disappointment. He’d hoped she’d partner Ren with him － he so rarely worked in a team and quite enjoyed Ren’s company － but he did have to admit it made more sense for Ren to work with his senpai following such a terrible tragedy. Besides, Goro could never hope to duplicate Narukami’s easygoing, fun demeanor. Narukami was much more comfortable around people than Goro was.

“－lloooo?”

Goro started. “What? I’m sorry. I was distracted.”

“I could tell. I said, what are you doing after work?”

He shrugged. “Today? Nothing much.”

“Want to come to the gym with me?”

Makoto pushed her bangs out of her eyes and Goro was struck suddenly by how _drained_ she looked. She needed some proper tea and food － when was the last time her meal hadn’t come from the convenience store? － and an early night in. Not the gym. 

“I really need to do something to take my mind off this fucker out there murdering people,” she implored him.

Against his better judgement, Goro found himself agreeing. “Sure. Around six?”

“Make it eight? I have a conference call with my boss.”

And just like that, she was Commissioner Sato again. He nodded, and she dismissed him, already on her computer answering an email. Goro let himself out.

He decided to take the long way back to his department, around the whole floor in a big circle. Goro liked to walk whenever possible － it kept him fit and gave him time to think. He liked to walk the floor a few times a day to fight off the monotony of desk work and stretch his legs and think. Sometimes answers came to him on these walks, so clearly that Goro didn’t understand how he hadn’t seen them before. Alas, this walk yielded nothing.

Homicide shared their floor with Arson, many of their cases overlapping, especially when gangs were involved. There were a lot of gangs in Tokyo － not just Yakuza and its many branches, but also the roughly three dozen unaffiliated gangs, Of these, the Shiryō Syndicate held the most power and occupied footholds around the city to better engage in small scale guerilla warfare. While many of the Tokyo gangs were content to stay in the shadows with their illegal business, using force if necessary, Shiryō had morphed into something more akin to a terrorist group since the installation of its new boss, Makigami Kazuya. Makigami had a strong temper and a short fuse, and anyone unlucky enough to displease him personally was beaten within an inch of their lives, if not outright killed. Some of the worst Shiryō victims Goro had seen had met with Makigami’s fists. 

“Akechi-kun?”

Goro looked up. He’d been so deep in thought that he hadn’t seen where he was going. He’d ended up at the elevators, in the divide between Arson and Homicide. The walls on either side had been made into a memorial for officers lost in the line of duty, picture frames and plaques arranged in orderly lines. Homicide had several more than Arson, and Amane Erika, the commissioner’s PA, was straightening one of the many frames on Homicide’s side.

“Oh.” Goro wondered if it was too rude to turn back. “Good afternoon, Amane-kun.” 

It probably was. He hoped she understood the meaning behind his use of keigo. He rarely spoke so formally. “Out to lunch already?”

“Oh! No, actually. Sato-san had a special task for me!” 

Amane always had a smile for him, and the one she gave him now was dazzling. She stepped back from the wall and gestured to the picture before her as though presenting a game show prize. Goro’s curiosity got the better of him, despite himself － news of an officer’s death spread quickly in Tokyo Met and he hadn’t heard of one, least of all in his department. 

His eyes widened.

The frame － a dark cherry wood like the others － hugged to itself a photograph of Amamiya Tatsuya. It was a recent picture, not the young man fresh from the academy but the father of three who owned a garage, a highly unusual choice. It was a bold decision by the commissioner － Tatsuya wasn’t even in uniform like his fallen comrades － but even bolder was the plaque underneath. There, along with his dates and years served, was Tatsuya’s name.

Amamiya Tatsuya.

 _Amamiya_ Tatsuya.

Ren would be touched. And Makoto had had it commissioned so quickly, in less than a week…

Makoto’s boss would hate it. Her boss’s boss would hate it. And her boss’s boss’s boss would hate it. Of this Goro was was certain, because it had been the reason Tatsuya had been fired. His brother, Suou Katsuya (who occupied his own frame on Arson’s side) had nearly followed for supporting Tatsuya. Goro’s mind flashed briefly to Narukami, to the photos of the husband and daughter he displayed openly on his desk － Tokyo Met had been a much different, more hostile place in Tatsuya’s time.

“It looks nice,” he told Amane. “Amamiya-kun will appreciate the gesture.”

Amane cocked her head. “It seems odd though, doesn’t it? I thought so when Sato-san asked me to hang the photo. Amamiya Tatsuya was fired decades ago.”

And Goro couldn’t explain it, but for some reason, Amane’s comment really pissed him off. He felt a rage boil inside him, a rage he always worked very hard to contain.

“He was a good cop, and the father of one of our own,” he spat. The words poured out of him and he couldn’t stop them. He couldn’t hold in the anger behind them. “He deserves to be on that wall, protocall be damned.” He rounded on her, glaring, daring her to question Makoto, to question him. 

She didn’t.

Maybe it was the intensity on his face, or the loss of all formality, because she didn’t say anything at all.

* * *

Goro was not explicitly a gym person. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t like the gym, exactly. He just preferred to get his exercise by jogging through one of Tokyo’s many parks, or if he must pay for services, in a rock climbing gym. Makoto, however, preferred _workouts_ , the kind of activity that required specialized equipment a person just could not reasonably be expected to cram into a Tokyo apartment. Even her aikido, arguably the least materially demanding workout, needed a large, thick mat to prevent injury. 

Thankfully, Makoto did not want to practice aikido today (he had never been a challenge, and she would just be throwing him over her head until she tired anyway), but Goro was exhausted and sore from the treadmill (they had “raced” to see who could run the farthest － today it was Makoto) and had taken a pounding holding her punching bag while she beat the shit out of it. He felt, even with the giant heavy bag between them, that she’d given him a few bruises.

“Okay,” he wheezed finally, stumbling to safety and mopping his face with a towel. “I’m calling it. I’m done now.”

Makoto threw several kicks at the bag － something she couldn’t do before without hitting him too － for a few minutes more and then dropped to the floor, breathing hard.

“I feel. _So_. Much better,” she gasped, grinning.

Goro pushed his sweaty hair out of his face. “Glad to know violence calms you.”

“ _Controlled_ violence on a punching bag.”

“I’m more than a punching bag, Makoto.”

And they both laughed.

They ran into Sakamoto as they were leaving － almost literally, because he was dashing through the double doors like he was being chased, a sports bag slung over one shoulder. 

“Shit! Watch where you’re － oh.” 

Sakamoto’s glare softened immediately at seeing Makoto. “Apologies, Sato-san,” he sputtered, quickly bowing his head. “Wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Hello, Sakamoto-san,” Makoto said cheerfully. “It’s quite alright.”

Sakamoto’s eyes slid over to Goro, and Goro saw him clench his jaw, a vein pulsing at his temple. He cringed inwardly － this certainly would not endear Sakamoto to him.

“Akechi.”

“Hello, Sakamoto-san,” Goro echoed in his best imitation of Makoto. 

“You seem to be in quite the hurry,” Makoto observed. Bless her, taking Sakamoto’s glare off of him.

“Yeah.” Sakamoto shifted awkwardly. “Need to blow off some steam, get out of the house.” It was getting late － Goro noted the orange streaked sky through the gym’s windows. And Sakamoto seemed awfully tense. 

“Is everything okay?”

He glanced at Goro, clearly wondering how much Goro had told Makoto of the goings-on in his home. Goro knew things were not okay. He’d seen firsthand.

“Just stressed, is all,” Sakamoto finally admitted.

“How’s everything at home?” 

To her credit, Makoto’s voice and face were the picture of concern, but still Goro wondered just how much time Sakamoto had spent around the Amamiyas, if he would take offense at Makoto’s rather pointed, almost interrogative questioning. Makoto came from a long line of cops, and she sometimes didn’t know how to turn Commissioner Sato off. She never had.

Sakamoto, for his part, didn’t seem bothered. Rather, he seemed to be struggling with the same dilemma Goro had struggled with this morning: How much could he say without betraying Ren’s trust?

“Difficult.” 

The word seemed forced out, syllable by syllable, but at the same time, syllable by syllable it lifted a great weight from Sakamoto. He stood a little straighter, his scowl vanishing. He just looked tired now.

“Are you okay?”

He waved the question off. “It’s everyone else I’m worried about.” 

Goro noted he did not actually answer the question.

“They’re not really doing great,” Sakamoto continued, rubbing the back of his neck. “Futaba and Shinya are having a hard time. Don’t wanna talk to me or Ren. And. Well. You know Ren.”

“He’s an enigma,” Goro agreed.

Sakamoto shot him a look. “...Yeah. He’s really closed off. Just doing a lot of legal crap.” And then his voice changed. It was louder, more abrupt. “He’ll be back the day after tomorrow though. He just needs something to _do_ . Something that’s not… _that_ , y’know?”

Goro offered what he hoped Sakamoto took as a sincere smile. “Well, we’ve got plenty of that. We could use his help,” he assured him.

“He always offers a unique perspective,” Makoto added. “We need him pretty badly, truth be told.”

Sakamoto looked thoughtful. 

“I’ll let him know. He might be happy about that.”

They chatted for a few minutes more and said their goodbyes, and Goro watched Sakamoto make a beeline for the treadmills. Goro had watched the stress fleck off Makoto like old paint as she ran today. He knew that Sakamoto ran, and sometimes ran very hard, despite the limp Goro’d observed on numerous occasions. They ran in a manner less controlled, less contained than jogging. They ran like they were flying.

Maybe Sakamoto and Makoto knew something he didn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some more fandom-pulling for you! Kamiya is a rendition of L from Death Note, included as an inside joke between me and my ex because the entire game I called Akechi Light Yagami. Amane Erika is Amane Misa - Erika is the name of the actress who played Misa in the live action movie. The briefly-mentioned Mogi is also from Death Note.
> 
> Persona shout-outs: Adachi (obviously), though my Adachi is female due to a really nice fanart I once saw of a female Adachi with her hair in a low ponytail, wearing a skirt suit. The other officers in the unit are Sho Minazuki (P4 Arena) and Kurogami (Detective Naoto).
> 
> The Commissioner Sato Makoto is Niijima Makoto. Sato is the last name of her voice actress. 
> 
> Yakuza, gangs, and Shiryō: Shiryō is not a real gang, but Tokyo does have a gang problem (as do many large cities in the world), and the Yakuza have their claws in MANY of them. The Yakuza has hundreds of branches spanning all over the country, and for a gang as powerful as Shiryō to not be Yakuza is kind of rare. Them turning to "small scale terrorism and guerilla warfare," as Goro mentions, is possibly to preserve their independence.
> 
> -kun: To avoid the awkwardness that comes with power plays, government positions, etc, all government workers address each other with the honorific -kun. The only exception seems to be a direct superior (so even though, for example, Mogi is a department head, he isn't Goro's department head, so Goro would call him Mogi-kun, not Mogi-san).
> 
> Keigo: Keigo is the formal way that the Japanese speak. When you learn Japanese, you learn a variety of keigo. Most foreigners learn humble speech but there exists (I believe) up to seven different kinds of keigo, with the most polite being reserved for use with speaking to or about the imperial family. Keigo is a series of verb conjugations that grow increasingly more complicated the more polite one is intending to be. In Japanese, Goro is speaking in a polite manner to Amane (which I tried to convey in English using "good afternoon" rather than "hello" or "hi"). Polite speech, when used incorrectly (for example, you are close friends but you speak to your friend as though you hardly know each other), can indicate a standoffish manner, anger, or rudeness. (The exact opposite of this is Sawai Usagi/Tsukino Usagi, who hardly uses keigo at all in her Neverending Quest for Friends.)


	10. Ann (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ann receives a letter from her father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: There is ONE (1) Royal spoiler in this chapter. It is blink and you'll miss it and not important to this story at all, but it IS a very big spoiler for the game. If you wish to avoid it, skip to the second scene.
> 
> ****
> 
> Additional tags: Parental neglect, emotional neglect, frenemy, let ryuuji say fuck

**高巻杏** **Takamaki Ann**

“Come on, girls, look lively! This whole issue is _Beauty in Performance_ and I am not seeing that right now!”

“No one will buy these clothes if you don’t look happy in them, girls! More smiling! More doe eyes!”

_Flash! Flash! Flash!_

“Great! Looking good! Arisa-chan, do like this! Yes!”

_Flash!_

“Ann-chan, stand like this! Fantastic!”

_Flash! Flash!_

“Mika-chan, like this! Fwaah! Yes! Perfect!”

_Flash! Flash! Flash!_

“Beautiful, girls, beautiful!” Minaguchi clasped his hands under his chin and sighed romantically. “What did I － no, what did Hoshi Talent － no, what did _Japan_ do to deserve three such wonderful girls? Take a break, everyone!” 

He whirled towards the photographer. “ _Komatsu!_ ” Minaguchi crossed the space between them in three strides and clapped the man so hard on the shoulder Komatsu nearly dropped his camera. 

“I want to do an outdoor shoot,” Minaguchi said dramatically. “We only have the Yoshizawa twins for a few hours.” He wrapped a deceptively strong arm around Komatsu, whirled him around, and began frog marching him in the direction of the exit. “I was thinking of using the silk Rosay Fritz with the theme of… “

Ann waited until the men had move out of earshot before saying in a hushed voice, “I think Manager-san has really lost it this time. He’s obsessed.”

“Well, we’ve never had an _entire_ issue for ourselves,” Arisa pointed out, unnecessarily straightening the headband that held her short hair in place. “Just us and the celebrities? It’s pretty cool.”

“I wouldn’t call the Yoshizawa twins celebrities.” Mika was dismissive.

“They’re pretty big in the dance world.”

“Local celebrities,” Ann clarified.

Mika wrinkled her nose. “I can’t wait until we’re done with sports. Shouldn’t dancers have _nice_ clothes?” She picked at the thin silk of her half skirt like it personally offended her. “I want to go to Sendagaya. Manager-san hinted that there’s talk of Katsuki Michiru doing a feature.”

Ann and Arisa stared at her blankly.

“Seriously? The violinist?”

More blank looks.

Mika rolled her eyes. “Honestly, you two are so uncultured,” she huffed. “And you _sing_ , Arisa.”

“Pop idols don’t really hang out with violinists,” Arisa countered.

Mika jabbed a finger at her. “You’re not an _idol_ ,” she sneered. “You’re just an oversold model. Remember Hinako + Erika? _They_ were idols. Shame they left the business.”

Ann sighed. Mika was always so difficult, and out of all the people Hoshi Talent represented, Minaguchi always insisted that the three of them work together. “Mika, there’s no need to attack Arisa －”

“Attack? I’m just stating the truth.”

Ann gave her a stern look. Mika sighed wistfully.

“Sorry, she mumbled. “I just… I really miss Jing, you know?”

“We all do,” Ann sympathesized, toying with a strand from her ponytail. “She’s not dead though, Mika. She just quit modeling. Just call her.”

“You know her heart was never in it,” Arisa added. “She was just doing this to pay her way through law school.”

But Mika didn’t want to talk about Jing anymore. She’d taken Jing’s leaving hard.

“What about your brother?” she asked Ann abruptly. “He hasn’t left, right? He’s still modeling?”

Ann raised an eyebrow. “Why?

“We could feature men if he signed with Hoshi!”

“Manager-san doesn’t like Ken-san,” Arisa shot down. She had known Ann long enough to remember when Minaguchi had met Ann and Ken. It had not gone well. “And this is for a women’s magazine. He would take up our space.”

Mika pouted and Ann _got_ it. Her eyes widened.

“Oh, Mika, gross!”

“What? Your brother is cool,” Mika protested.

“My brother is rude and lazy and _gross_.” Ann made a face. “You just want to be in love. Ken’s not even attractive.”

“You’re twins, Ann,” Arisa laughed.

“And I’m the pretty one.”

“I do want to be in love,” Mika cut in, “preferably with someone rich. I don’t want to be an old, working mom.”

Ann snorted in an unladylike way. “You would be wasting your time with Ken. He’s not －”

Manager Minaguchi burst in just then, cutting Ann off.

“Outside! Outside now, girls!” he squealed, flapping his hands in excitement. “If we’re lucky, we can snap a few shots with the Yoshizawa twins when they arrive! Hurry now, Komatsu is all set up!”

* * *

Ann stared at her phone screen.

The subway was still crowded, but it was past prime commuter hours and she had managed to find a seat. She’d plopped her purse (a designer freebie from one of her shoots) in her lap and pulled out her phone to text Shiho, wanting to see if her girlfriend wanted to do dinner or come over, but all the talk of her brother today had her thinking…

Ann didn’t keep any pictures of her family on her phone. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she and Ken took a photo together. There were no old text messages from him in her inbox.

She scrolled through her call log. Ryuuji, Ryuuji, Manager-san, Shiho. Jing, Ryuuji, Shiho, Nanny, Mrs Sakamoto… She scrolled and scrolled and scrolled. 

Finally, wedged between Manager-san and Club Sevens was KEN, his name in red. An incoming call. He had called her two months ago, and they’d spoken for twelve minutes and forty-seven seconds.

Ann didn’t even remember what they’d talked about.

Her thumb hovered over the red KEN. She had nothing to say. What could she say? “My coworker wants to date you, and, oh!, are you still talking to Mother and Isӓ?” Like that would go over well. She could imagine Ken’s huff, his infuriating sigh and drawn out ‘Aaaann….’ like he was scolding her, like he was tired of the conversation before it had even begun.

She put the phone away.

* * *

Ann lived in a fairly nice, fairly large apartment near the top of her building in uptown Shibuya. It wasn’t the penthouse she had lived in as a child, but she felt it fit her and her salary. It wasn’t boastful or showy. She’d filled it with comfortable furniture (some of it from thrift stores she scoped out with Shiho), plush carpeting, and a collection of trinkets and knickknacks picked up throughout the years. Her parents’ penthouse had been an antique, sterile environment, but her apartment was a home.

She’d picked up her mail on the way in and, after flopping unceremoniously on her living room couch, began to flick through it. This week’s Suzume circular. This month’s _Peaches & Honey _ subscription. Bill, bill, junk disguised as a postcard, and…

A letter from her parents.

She stared at it. She didn’t know whose handwriting was on the envelope. Her parents rarely spoke Japanese to their children － she and Ken had learned from their nanny.

Ann glared at the envelope and dropped it on the coffee table. She swept up the rest of the mail and headed for the kitchen. The bills she stuck to the refrigerator with the cute OKINAWA!!! magnets she’d bought on vacation with Shiho. (She’d never remember to pay them if she put them anywhere else.) She served herself the cream puffs she’d bought on the way home and savored them as she flipped through the Suzume circular.

Shopping had always brightened her mood. She made a note of the things that caught her eye, folding down the corners on those pages with care, and promised herself she’d visit the department store this week. She was overdue for some retail therapy. If Jing and Arisa weren’t busy, they could all go together. Make it a real girls’ day like they hadn’t had in a long time. 

She tried to read _Peaches & Honey _ . She lived for her monthly guide on beauty, fashion, and modern womanhood. But Ann couldn’t concentrate. The words didn’t make sense and none of the photos － even her own La Lune Parfume ad － could hold her attention. That stupid letter was whispering to her, and she didn’t want to read it, but she wanted to know what was inside, she wanted to just shove it in the drawer with the others, she wanted to see if they’d _noticed_.

If they’d asked about her.

If they’d said _anything_ about her years’ long silence.

She hesitantly allowed herself back into her living room, dragging her feet. She sat down. Picked up the envelope. 

A long time ago, Ann looked forward to her parents’ letters. She and Ken would swarm their poor butler, a middle aged European man who spoke three languages, and demand to know what their isӓ and mother had said to them. If they were missed. Where their parents were when they’d written the letter. Ann grew indifferent to the letters as she aged, and then grew to hate them. The letters always followed the same pattern, as though one of their PAs had written it from a template. No imagination to them, and never, ever asking after her and Ken.

If she were Ryuuji, she’d open the letter. She’d open it just for the satisfaction of ripping it up. Because who cared what they said? They’d left her.

She should be more like Ryuuji.

She could afford to get angry.

She ripped the envelope open and yanked out the letter. But she didn’t rip it up. She wasn’t Ryuuji.

She needed to know.

_Rakkain Ann, terveisiӓ Amerikasta!_

The letter was in Finnish. Her father had written this.

_My dearest Ann, greetings from America! Your mother and I are in New York for Fashion_ _Week. New York is not as cultured as Paris, but Paris is not as flashy as New York. I think your_ _mother is starting a collection － she buys all the I ♡ NY trinkets she sees. She must have_ _thirty shirts by now._ _Hiroshi told us last week that Minna is now selling on all five islands. We have finally_ _conquered Shikoku! We’ll celebrate the next time your mother and I are in Japan. All my love,_ _darling. Isӓ._

A photograph had been folded in between the creases of the paper. It had been taken on a busy street, blurry people and cars in the background. A small Japanese woman, grinning widely and wearing stylish sunglasses and a ridiculous I ♡ NY T-shirt, was leaning into a tall, laughing man with high European cheekbones. They looked like any other middle-aged tourists on vacation. Maybe a bit well off, traveling in their golden years. They didn’t look like internationally renowned fashion designers in town for the biggest event of the year.

They didn’t look like they had two children back in Japan.

They didn’t look like they’d abandoned two children in Japan.

Ann threw everything away from herself in disgust and flopped back hard into the cushions. Everything was still the same. They’d hardly said anything, and what they had said was the same. Still talking about themselves. Her isӓ hadn’t asked about her at all.

She suddenly felt sick that she’d gotten a job in her parents’ world. She didn’t walk runways, and she refused to wear their label Minna, but she still put on designer clothes and had her picture taken in them, right? Wasn’t that what her parents paid other people to do for them?

Ann thought about calling Ken. She wondered if Isӓ had sent him a letter too, if he’d just talked about himself or if he’d actually asked Ken about his life.

It bothered her that Ken still spoke to their parents. Their parents had paused their careers just long enough to give birth and then left her and Ken with a butler and Nanny, jetting all over first Japan, and then Asia, promoting Minna and its cute sunflower logo. She remembered seeing them more when she was younger. Not _often_ , just more. But then London department stores wanted to sell their clothes, and once Paris called, the visits home dwindled to only once or twice a year.

It _bothered_ her that Ken still spoke to their parents. It more than bothered her. Ann hated it.

“Why would you do that?” she’d demanded five years ago. The first year she hadn’t visited their parents on their annual trip to Japan. “Why would you go see them?”

Ken stared back at her. They really did look so much alike, no matter what they said otherwise. His face was her face, except his face was carefully blank and hers was creased with anger.

“Ann, they’re our parents,” he said evenly. “Am I supposed to abandon them?”

“They abandoned us!” Ann was shouting now. She didn’t care. “They flew all over the world our whole lives for _clothes_ and they LEFT us!”

“They’re still our parents,” Ken insisted, because Nanny had taught them too well, because they might have Finnish blood but that kind of parental devotion was Japanese to its core.

“ _Nanny_ raised us and loved us,” Ann spat. “Mother and Isӓ were never here. They never even asked about us.”

“They asked about you today.”

His soft insistence, the quiet rebuttals to her every point were making Ann see red.

“It was always _us_ , Ken! You and me! We’re the only family we have, that’s how it’s always been!”

Ken sighed. “It’s just one day a year, Ann. We only have to see them one day a year.”

And Ann realized then that this was not the same Ken she’d grown up with. The Ken who’d cried with her every time their parents left, who’d stopped answering the phone for international calls, the Ken who raged with her about being forgotten, unwanted, unloved.

She didn’t speak to her brother for a long time after that. At first Ken reached out. He called, and he texted, and he showed up at her apartment, but Ann could not be swayed, and after a while, he stopped trying.

She didn’t remember what rekindled their relationship. Maybe it was Nanny. Nanny reminding them, gently nudging them, that familial devotion was a requirement of their heritage, and that above all they were blood. They were prickly towards each other at first, because there was hurt on both sides now, but Nanny had taught Ken too well, and every few months he would reach out. Sometimes she would reply.

Ann thought about calling Ken and trying to have a civil conversation about the letter. (It turned into an argument even in her head.)

She thought about calling Nanny or Mrs Sakamoto and crying about the letter.

She thought about calling Ryuuji or Shiho and bitching about the letter. Shiho would be all soft murmurs and “I’m sorry” and “baby.” Ryuuji would tell her to tear the letter up because “FUCK those assholes, you’re better than them, Takamaki!”

Ann did none of those things. She grabbed one of the decorative couch pillows and crushed it to her face, and screamed into it until her lungs were empty.

And then she took the letter and the photo to her room, to the small desk in the corner, and shoved them deep inside the bottom drawer, amid the dozens of other such letters, and she decided she was not going to think about it again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More fandom references! Some of these will become very important later on in the series: Kuroki Arisa is from the live action Sailor Moon. She is based on Kuroki Mio, and shares her first name with her actress. Katsuki Michiru is also from Sailor Moon － Katsuki is the last name of Michiru's voice actress. Minaguchi is the name of Aino Minako's manager in the live action, and Komatsu is the last name of Minako's live action actress. Hoshi Talent is also a reference, as one of the live action image songs is called Hoshi (though it's Rei's image song － this itself is a tongue in cheek reference to the Reinako ship).
> 
> Hinako+Erika are from Death Note. Both are the names of actresses who have played Misa Amane (one in the TV series, one in the live action), a tongue in cheek reference to the fact that Misa is an idol.
> 
> Jing is from Boys Over Flowers, specifically the new 2019 Chinese version. She's the lawyer Ann recommended to Ren a few chapters ago.
> 
> Ken is a tricky one. His NAME is a reference to Amada Ken from P3, but his CHARACTER mostly original and a result of the numerous genderswapped characters people like to pull with anime characters. Ken and Ann both have names that are both Japanese and Finnish － Takamaki/Takamӓki, Ken, and Ann are names in both those languages and I did a lot of research to make sure of that. This was for the headcanon that Ann is part Finnish. In this series, she's half Japanese, half Finnish, no "American."
> 
> Isӓ is Finnish for Father.


	11. Futaba (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Futaba lets someone in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on texting: If there is a date/time in place of a name, the message is old. 
> 
> Additional tags: Bad coping mechanisms, isolating, mentions of parent death

**雨宮双葉** **Amamiya Futaba**

All Futaba wanted to do was play Star Lords. It was super old school, and she needed an emulator to play it because she no longer owned the old gaming system it used. (She’d cannibalized it for parts to build her first computer, which she’d also ended up cannibalizing down the line.)

She just wanted to play Star Lords, because she and Tousan used to play Star Lords. They’d race in their 8-bit spaceships to explore distant 8-bit planets and shoot 8-bit enemies. Futaba had needed to search the depths of the internet in many a vintage game forum to find a download.

But her phone kept going off. With every  _ ping! _ her concentration broke a little more. She let out an angry growl as a  _ ping! _ made her miss her jump and watched her little astronaut die in a pool of lava. 

Damnit!

She picked up her phone, intending to capslock at the texter. (Or throw the phone into the hall.) She didn’t  _ want _ to talk to anyone. Didn’t they see that by now?

Her inbox was full of unopened texts. GAME OVER flashed on her computer screen: She’d run out of lives and needed to start over. Damnit. 

She sighed and hit the A button on her game controller and the OPEN MESSAGE button on her phone. Star Lords’s mocking message (LOSER) disappeared as the game restarted.

**CHAT WITH YUUKI-KICHI**

**< Wednesday, 4:42pm>** Hey

**< Wednesday, 5:29pm>** Futaba-chan, you doing okay?

**< Wednesday, 5:47pm>** Haven’t seen you at school. Ren says you haven’t been going. 

**< Wednesday, 6:01pm>** Futaba-chan, are you there?

Futaba closed the message without responding and opened the next.

**CHAT WITH BIG BROTHER**

**< Tuesday, 8:09pm>** Fuu-chan, can we talk about it?

**< Tuesday, 8:14pm>** Can you unlock the door? Please? I just want to make sure you’re okay.

**< Wednesday, 7:17pm>** I’m home. Did you eat anything today?

**< Wednesday, 8:24pm>** I love you, Futaba. I’m just worried about you.

Futaba didn’t want to talk to Ren. Ren wanted to talk about Papa and Tousan and  _ feelings _ . Ren would probably cry. Futaba would definitely cry.

Futaba wanted to see Ren, but she couldn’t talk to him.

**CHAT WITH LIGHT OF MY LIFE**

**< Monday, 4:44pm>** FUTABA!!!!

**< Monday, 4:45pm>** Where r u???

**< Monday, 4:46pm>** U haven’t been 2 wrk in weeks!

**< Tuesday, 7:03pm>** Ur little brother came by & told Mngr there was an emergency? R u ok?

**> Futaba< **yeah i’m ok 

**< Hikari>** OMG

**< Hikari>** FUTABA

**< Hikari>** U LIVE

**< Hikari> **WAT HAPPENED

**> Futaba< **um 

Futaba wasn’t ready to tell Hikari. Hikari worried worse than Yuuki-kichi, and Futaba wasn’t ready to be bombarded with texts and questions. Hikari could be quite insistent behind a screen.

She’d call her later. Whenever she was able to actually  _ talk _ about it without shutting down.

There were more texts from more people, but many were Ren’s friends, or their parents’ friends, not people she actually knew. Ryuuji had sent a few, but he clearly didn’t know what to say and ended up sounding a lot like her brother. Most of her own friends were online, made from gaming or in forums, and they didn’t know because she hadn’t told them.

Well. 

There was one person she knew in real life, and he hadn’t sent her anything.

**CHAT WITH YUZU LEMON**

**> Futaba< **hi 

**< Yusuke>** Hello Futaba. How are you?

**> Futaba< **meh 

**< Yusuke>** Is something the matter?

**> Futaba< **don’t really wanna talk about it 

_[Futaba is typing...]_

**> Futaba< **my dads died 

**< Yusuke>** I heard. My apologies, I did not want to cause you  more distress by reaching out with what you undoubtedly  would see as just another empty condolence. 

**< Yusuke>** I sympathize, though of course I do not claim to  know your precise experience. I have also lost a parent.

**> Futaba< **it hurts, yuzu 

**> Futaba< **i miss them 

**< Yusuke> ** You will always miss them. That is alright. I am afraid it  will continue to hurt for quite some time. Grief is a 

horrible darkness wrapped so tightly around the heart that  every beat elicits that pain you feel. The entire world  becomes as dark as the darkness in your heart. Bleak. It feels  as though you simply cannot go on.

**> Futaba< **does it ever go away? 

**< Yusuke>** It does. With time. That terrible darkness will loosen its  grip and you will find that one day you are free of it. You will  find that it does not hurt to remember, there is an absence of  pain in your heart. You will understand then that the memories  that caused you pain previously bring you only joy, and what  you have lost will never truly be gone.

_ [Futaba is typing...] _

_ [Futaba is typing...] _

**> Futaba< **yuzu? 

**< Yusuke>** Yes?

**> Futaba< **please tell me what you’re working on now? 

**< Yusuke>** Of course.

Futaba read on as Yuzu described a large painting he’d just started, one he wanted to do in the traditional Japanese style. Texts poured in as Yuzu seemingly lost himself in colors and techniques, and for the first time since Yuuki-kichi had hugged her in tears outside the principal’s office, Futaba’s chest felt a little less constricted. Her reboot was going painfully slow, but the distraction Yuzu’s words offered her seemed to restore more of her baser functions. Her CPU speed increased for the first time in weeks, just a little, and it felt good. She felt a little more of her backup data come online.

She looked at Yuzu’s most recent text (where he shared his internal debate between painting with ink or actual paint) and thought to herself she’d been very lucky to have met him, because what other person understood her like Yuzu?

* * *

The knock at the door bothered Futaba more than it should. Every day one or more of her family tried breeching her firewall. And yeah, it was impenetrable (Futaba did  _ not _ have cracks in her code, thank you), but it was still annoying. Her brother’s boyfriend had even asked if she’d like to  _ run _ with him to get her feelings out. 

_ Run. _ Kek.

So when this knock came, Futaba was pretty irritated. She glared at her monitor, at her 8-bit spaceship, and hit B more times than was necessary to defeat the incoming onslaught.

The knock came again.

“Futaba? It’s Shinya.”

A, B, B, B, Up, A, B.

Boom! Alien armada defeated! Time to invade their planet.

“You don’t have to talk to me.” Shinya was still there. “But I’ve got some somen if you want it.”

Futaba’s stomach growled through the loading screen. She hadn’t eaten today. She hadn’t left her room at all.

She climbed off her bed and tiptoed towards her door. Its original handle hadn’t had a lock on it, and the one she touched now didn’t match the others in the apartment. (One of Ryuuji’s many tasks during that first week had been installing it.) She hesitated, but her stomach growled again. 

Somen…

She flipped the lock, scurried back to bed, picked up her controller, and started a suicide run through the last planet.

Shinya waited.

He’d heard the lock click open, she knew. But he waited. Shinya didn’t want to scare her off by barging in too early.

“I’m coming in,” he announced after a beat.

He opened the door only as much as he needed and closed it until just a crack of hallway light intruded. He waved a packet of papers at her. 

“One of your classmates dropped your homework off again. Ren said it was a guy this time.”

Futaba’s eyes remained on the screen, the graphics reflected in her glasses. Shinya wasn’t bothered.

“There’s mochi ice cream downstairs. I’ve got my phone on me if you want any.”

Her suicide run ended when her character was crushed by falling rock. She didn’t think she’d get this far. Shocked face emoji.

The homework packet had been tossed on her bed, the somen on her computer chair (there wasn’t a flat surface in Futaba’s room not cluttered with scattered computer parts, manga, or various video game memorabilia), and Shinya was nearly out the door. She loved that about her little brother. He didn’t  _ bother _ her, even though he must be worried too.

“H-hey,” she called tentatively. Her voice was rusty; she wasn’t really using it much these days. Troubleshooting audio output.

Shinya stopped, his fingers resting lightly on the door handle. He didn’t speak, or look hopeful. He just looked like Shinya. The same bratty, bored Shinya he always was. The same Shinya who’d done this dance with her many times before.

“Do you. Um.” Futaba rubbed at her nose anxiously. “D’you wanna watch  _ Fujimine _ with me?”

Engaging standby mode. 

“That lady thief show you watch with Papa?”

The one he’d always said was stupid and unbelievable. The one he’d always made fun of her and Papa for watching. 

She nodded. He shrugged.

“Sure.”

Shinya shut her door with a soft click. Shut out the undoubtedly listening Ren and Ryuuji.

“I’m not caught up with the new season,” he warned, pulling the computer chair towards her. He held out the somen.

“We can… start from the beginning?” Futaba suggested. Shinya made himself comfortable, propping his feet up on the edge of her mattress.

“Let’s do it.”

Futaba used her game controller to navigate her computer, finding the series torrent she’d downloaded a lifetime ago. She ate her noodles as the familiar series opening played, her visual input glitching several times as she remembered watching with Papa.

If Shinya noticed her tears, he said nothing. And if he thought  _ Fujimine _ was still stupid, he didn’t mention that either. He had all the appropriate reactions -- surprise, awe, fear -- at all the right times, and Futaba couldn’t have loved him more right then if she tried.

Ren smothered her with his worrying, they all did. Ren and Tousan and Papa. But Shinya gave her space. He let her breathe and figure things out, and if she wanted to talk, he was right there. And if talking was too much, they just played their video game or watched their show and he didn’t expect anything of her. 

As the ending theme played, her little brother asked her, “You wanna do one more?

And Futaba smiled a bit. She carefully perched her empty bowl on a tiny bit of space on her desk.

“Yeah. The next episode is really good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Futaba is a complex character. My Futaba. On the one hand, she's probably on the spectrum (I hesitate to give her a diagnosis), and I modeled her a little after myself (I'm also on the spectrum, and I don't want to put any stereotypes or "she should typically display x because she's modeled after you and you have this" on her by explaining my diagnosis). I see her as having a lot of separation anxiety towards her fathers, to the point where their two week trip rendered her nearly robotic just to cope; and I see her as being supremely gifted a la her Persona counterpart, with computers and electronics, and super nerdy. I've always thought Persona Futaba might be on the spectrum. The Futaba in this chapter is a little more comfortable than in her other chapter, despite her grief. She's been buried in video games and online for weeks and put on the facade of so many characters that she's somewhat of a person, but Shinya's pretty aware she's still a wreck.


	12. Minako (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minako visits her brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ope, dear Ope, come back. I enjoyed your comments! AO3 ate my reply telling you I'm not currently using social media, and I'm super new to AO3 so idk if DMing is a thing here. =/
> 
> *****************
> 
> Additional tags: Mentions of body shaming, terminal illness, hospitals

**有里美奈子** **Arisato Minako**

She stood in a hospital room, her hand held out to the man in the bed. She was smiling; he was too, his face a shadow of hers.

“Minako,” he protested, “you really shouldn’t have.” 

The protest was in vain, and they both knew it.

“Hush.” Minako grinned, waggling the small red mp3 player in her hand. “You wanted new music. Take it.”

After a moment, wordlessly, her brother unplugged his earphones and held out his own blue mp3 player. Minako swapped red for blue and tucked her brother’s player carefully in her purse.

Sharing music was a thing the Arisatos had done since they were small, music being one of their few common interests. Their mp3 players were outdated but convenient, and they could still hold a lot of songs. Minako would spend a whole week or more sometimes creating playlists for her brother. Anything to ease the boredom he must feel cooped up in the hospital.

It wasn’t babying. It was no different than when they shared a J-Tunes account and created playlists for each other for fun. And it gave her something to do in her free time. Anything to keep her from thinking about… Well.

Minako sat down on the edge of her brother’s bed, and thumped his foot lightly.

“Has your doctor been in today?” she asked.

Tired eyes peeked at her behind tousled hair.

“You know she doesn’t see me on Tuesdays.”

Was it Tuesday? The days had been blurring together recently. Minako had gone into Jun’s on Thursday last week, only for Naru and Usagi to gently remind her that she didn’t work that day. (Shinjiro had arrived shortly after to pick her up and, bless him, had bought her a lily from the shop to stave off some of the embarrassment.)

“You need to slow down, Minako,” her brother was saying. His voice was soft. “You’re pushing yourself too hard. Take a day off.”

“You sound like Shinjiro,” Minako laughed. It was a fake laugh, and they both knew it.

“And we’re right.” 

Her brother’s gaze was firm and steady, and Minako’s laugh died in her throat. Didn’t he realize she did this for him? That everything she did, everything in her entire life, had been for him, for them, for what was left of their family?

Quietly, she looked at her brother. His pale face and his too sharp cheekbones. The reddish stain under his nose from another nosebleed. The limp hair always in his eyes. She reached out and brushed some of it away, only for it to fall back in place. 

It didn’t listen.

Just like her brother.

It didn’t matter if she worked a little bit too hard right now, just as long as she could see him. Just as long as he got better. She’d take a break when he was released. Then and only then.

Minako plastered a smile on her face and jumped up.

“I need to get downstairs and start work,” she announced cheerily. “Make sure you tell the nurses to open your curtains now and again. It’s always so dark in here. It’s not good for you.”

Her brother huffed. “Yes, oneesan.”

“I’ll come back before I go home,” Minako promised, heading for the door. “Say hi to Akinari-kun for me, Minato.”

* * *

Minako had applied for the after hours janitor position the day after her brother was admitted as a permanent patient. Many people worked in janitorial, but Minako worked with only one other person, a strict older woman named Ikuko-san. Minako started two hours before Ikuko-san, so when the other woman showed up for her shift to see Minako only just beginning to clean the lobby, she was not pleased at all.

“What’s this?”

“Oh!” Minako jumped at the sudden noise, yanking her earbuds out of her ears. Seeing who had spoken, she bowed quickly in apology.

“Ikuko-san! Konban wa!”

Ikuko-san frowned. “Why is this not done?” she demanded. “Where have you been all night?”

“Gomenasai!” Minako bowed again. “The lobby didn’t empty until just recently,” she explained. “A family was waiting for the results of an emergency surgery. It felt rude to clean around them.” She gripped the vacuum handle tightly. “I cleaned the administration halls instead. And the offices.”

Minako waited with baited breath until she saw Ikuko-san’s slight nod. The older woman made to join her, tying her permed hair up in a scarf. Minako began vacuuming the carpet while Ikuko-san mopped the linoleum that led to the elevators. Together they refilled the hand sanitizers and tissues.

They divided the window cleaning, starting at the far end and meeting in the middle, and Minako found herself grateful to the family who had forced her to change the cleaning schedule, because cleaning the lobby windows by herself was Minako’s least favorite thing to do in the two hours before Ikuko-san came to work.

As they drew close, Ikuko-san began to break the silence with conversation, as she usually did. She had a great many interests and pet peeves, from “kids today” to tea ceremony and Noh theater to what “that awful Shibue family” was doing to “disgrace the sanctity of the neighborhood.” Minako knew a lot about the Shibue family. She knew that the mother wore too much makeup and too high heels, the father was having an affair, and the son was not only a bad student but overweight as well.

“His school’s just let out for summer,” Ikuko-san was saying, “and the way his mother praised him, I thought maybe he’d turned himself around…”

Minako tuned out for a while (“They celebrate mediocrity!”), the rhythm of spraying the window and then wiping it down, spraying and then wiping soothing and mind numbing. But after a long tirade against the Shibues’ new curtains (ferociously ugly), Ikuko-san caught her attention.

“How’s your brother doing?”

_ Yesterday his nurse told me his blood counts are down again. He needed a transfusion. He’s hardly eating. He’s always exhausted. He’s depressed. There might be a problem with his lungs now… _

“He’s doing okay,” she said, smiling brightly. “His appetite is better today.”

And that wasn’t exactly a lie. Minato  _ had _ told her he’d eaten some rice during lunch.

“That’s good, that’s good,” Ikuko-san encouraged, and Minako felt her eyes burn. 

She turned her face away quickly so Ikuko-san couldn’t see, and continued cleaning.

* * *

It was midnight when Minako said goodnight to Ikuko-san, her shift finished. She was utterly exhausted and wanted nothing more than to go home and collapse into bed. Maybe that cute calico cat would be waiting for her in her window. 

But she didn’t go home. Not yet. She visited Minato every night after work, and she’d told him personally she’d come back tonight, and so she dragged herself up to the sixth floor and back to Minato’s room.

Everything was quiet on the sixth floor. Permanent residents lived here, patients who were too ill to live at home even with a personal nurse. Minato had become friendly with a few of them, and had introduced Minako to a couple. Minako knew Kamiki Akinari best, as he had the room next to Minato’s. Akinari had a year left to live, and Minako didn’t know if the knowledge of his own death comforted or scared him.

She waved quietly to the night nurses, who all recognized her even without her identification badge. Technically they were all breaking the rules － visiting hours had ended at eight － but employees were a grey area. Minako never caused any trouble, her brother’s machines never went off, and she did not bother the other patients, so the night nurses always let her in. One even offered her a rice ball － someone had brought in enough for the entire night shift － and Minako took one gratefully. There was salmon in it.

Akinari’s door was closed when Minako went down the hall, but she didn’t think he was asleep. He had told her he often had trouble sleeping at night. Nonetheless, Minako took care to be quiet when opening her brother’s door, just in case.

Minato was asleep when she slipped into his room. Any other night, Minako would leave a note on his nightstand that she had come back, and she loved him, and goodnight, but something about earlier, the remains of the nosebleed, the not quite lie to Ikuko-san, rattled her. She tiptoed across the room and, toeing her shoes off, slipped into the space Minato seemed to have left for her in his small bed. Her back pressed uncomfortably against the guard rail.

When they were small, after their parents died, they’d often shared a bed. Minato would have a bad dream, or Minako would cry from holding in too much anxiety, and one would inevitably end up in the other’s room, the other scooting over and pulling the covers back. They were just children and needed comfort.

Minako needed that comfort tonight, just for a little while. She laid wedged between her brother and the guard rail, the only sounds being the soft beeps of hospital machinery and Minato’s deep, even breathing, and in the quiet of the night, the tears slid down her cheeks.

All Minako wanted was her brother to get better. She couldn’t lose him. He couldn’t die. Solemn, sulky, serious Minato. 

Minato, who called her every day at lunch, when he was just waking up and she’d been up for hours. Who put silly songs on her J-Tunes playlists in between the serious to light the mood. Who gave her stupid gifts like 1,000 ¥1 coins for her birthday with an absolutely straight face.

Minato, who had never met Shinjiro, the other desperately important person in her life.

He had to get better.

He couldn’t leave her alone.

Around 1am, Minako very carefully got up, making sure not to disturb him or his medical equipment. She covered her brother with a blanket － the hospital was always so cold － and left him a note saying that she’d been to see him. And then she slipped out as quietly as she’d come in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started the C'est la Vie 5 series over a year and a half ago, and am posting it now with very few changes. This chapter was very difficult to write, as at the time, my then boyfriend was in the hospital with leukemia. He's in remission now(!), but during the entire first book of this series he was in the hospital and I used Minato to vent my own fears and frustrations. 
> 
> While Minato himself is never explicitly given an illness (people rarely are given real illnesses in Japanese media, when they're given named ones at all; it's a popular trope), I wrote him with my then boyfriend's symptoms, and my headcanon is that he has leukemia. Readers can imagine he has whatever － that's the beauty of the trope.


	13. Yuuki (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fights break out the first week back from summer vacation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Bullying, referenced homophobia, health problems, emotional neglect, past suicide attempt, mental health

**三島由輝** **Mishima Yuuki**

Yuuki liked order. He liked routine. Yuuki woke up at 4am every morning and stretched for twenty minutes. He arrived at school by 6:05 and he and Shiho would set up for the day, Yuuki teaching boys’ PE and Shiho teaching girls’. Ryuuji came in later, around eight. He helped Shiho between classes, and because there were more boys this year than girls, he and Yuuki divided classes.

Lunch was 12-1pm every day, six days a week, and when the weather was good, the three of them liked to eat outside by the vending machines. It made sense, his life. It made Yuuki comfortable and settled to know exactly what was coming every day. He did not like surprises. He did not like tardiness. It put him on edge.

“We should do a swimming unit,” Ryuuji said by way of greeting, sitting down heavily on the bench. He was late. Yuuki and Shiho were nearly finished with their lunches, even after waiting for him.

“Nice of you to join us,” Shiho remarked dryly.

Ryuuji waved her off. “Yeah well, you try breaking up a fight with two kids beating the absolute shit out each other.”

“Who was that?” Yuuki was curious. Kaibara was a good school, and fights were uncommon.

“Fukuyama and the Sohma kid.” Ryuuji took a bite of the salmon rice ball made no doubt by Ren.

“Sohma again?” Shiho _tsk_ ed. “He used to be a good kid. What happened?”

“Fukuyama asked him what happened to his okama kid brother,” Ryuuji scowled around a mouthful of food.

Yuuki winced. Growing up next door to the Amamiyas, _okama_ was a word he had heard often. It was the first bad word he and Ren had ever learned. They had been six, coming back from first grade very early in the year, and Yuuki had asked Jun why a girl in their class told Ren during Art that if he had two dads, they were okama. And Jun had grown very serious and sat both boys down and explained (much more calmly than Tatsuya would have) that okama was a very bad word for boys who loved other boys, and they must never call someone that. And they never did. Yuuki knew that Ren had endured the slur quite a lot growing up, moreso than Futaba or Shinya, first about his parents and then about himself. 

Kids could be cruel.

“What did _you_ do?” Yuuki asked, frowning.

“Didn’t punch a kid, if that’s what you’re asking.” Ryuuji glared at him, irritated that there’d been a fight in his class, pissed that it’d been about a gay boy. “Thanks for believing in me.”

“It’s not that I don’t－”

“Then why did you say it?”

“I think what Yuuki-kun meant,” Shiho cut in quickly and loudly, “is that you’ve been very tense lately, Ryuuji-kun, with your loss and everything at home and your health. Yuuki didn’t mean to imply that you _hit_ Fukuyama, but maybe you _said_ the wrong thing.”

Ryuuji didn’t seem quite satisfied but he accepted Shiho’s explanation without a fight. Yuuki shot her a grateful look. Sometimes he felt Ryuuji took offense with him simply because he was another man. Alpha male bullshit. He rarely argued with women. (Yuuki briefly wondered, not for the first time, _how_ Ryuuji and Ren’s relationship worked. He knew Ren pretty damn well, and he couldn't see him submitting to anyone, let alone Ryuuji.)

“What else could I do?” Ryuuji was back to talking about the fight. “School just started again. It’s not like anyone thought there’d be a fight on the third day.” He stuffed the rest of the rice ball in his mouth, his fingers shiny with salmon grease. “Ah b’oke ‘um up en took ‘um to da p’incipul,” he said around the rice.

Yuuki tapped his vending machine juice thoughtfully. 

“Who’s his homeroom teacher?”

“Kusaka. Same as Futaba,” Ryuuji answered.

“Kusaka’s really doing well this year,” Yuuki drawled.

“How is Futaba-chan?” Shiho asked. In class she was only ever Amamiya, but here in their private discussions, Shiho always called her Futaba-chan. Yuuki thought it was because Shiho felt a closeness to her.

His friend sighed and put his lunch down. “Not great. A little better? I don’t fucking know.” He ran his clean hand through his hair. “She doesn’t talk to me. She used to like me.”

“She doesn’t handle shock well,” Yuuki explained, for what felt like the hundredth time. “She isn’t talking to me either.”

“She only talks to Shinya,” Ryuuji went on. “Not even Ren. Just Shinya.”

Yuuki’s eyes lit up. “Ryuuji, that’s _good_ !” He wanted to shake him. “That’s _really_ good. Okay? Trust me. I grew up with that family.”

Ryuuji didn’t seem convinced, but Yuuki was confident. He’d seen so many of Futaba’s meltdowns and they’d all followed the same pattern. Futaba was predictable, like him. She liked routine. Maybe that was why he’d been able to break through her defenses and befriend her. Few of Ren’s other friends could say they’d done the same.

“The more you push her to talk to you, the more she’ll retreat into herself.” He sounded like his therapist. “She’s not like Ren.”

Ryuuji snorted, one hand pressing hard circles on the outside of his bad leg. “No one’s like Ren. He’s not one for, y’know. Talking about his feelings. Drives me crazy.”

 _Better than screaming matches over every stupid thing_ , Yuuki thought, picturing his parents.

“Speaking of Ren.” Shiho had been waiting for Ren’s name to pop up. Yuuki knew what she was about to say － they’d been talking about it before Ryuuji had stomped up. “Ryuuji, have you brought up the－”

Ryuuji knew too. “It’s not the right time,” he said flatly. Yuuki noticed he had removed the hand from his leg.

“It hasn’t been the right time for months.” Yuuki was adamant. “You told us at the beginning of the school year your doctor recommended－”

“I know what he recommended.” Ryuuji's voice was cold.

“It’s _September_.”

Shiho decided to intervene before the two men started arguing. 

“You _really_ need to talk about it,” she insisted.

“And I will! But not right now!”

“But didn’t your doctor say－”

“Yes.”

The next few things happened very quickly.

Shiho, her eyes filled with fire, leaned so far across Yuuki that he nearly fell backwards off the bench. She got right in Ryuuji’s face, and when she spoke, her words were fire too.

“Sakamoto Ryuuji. I know what you’re doing. _Stop._ You need surgery on your leg. You’ve _needed_ surgery on your leg.” Ryuuji tried to argue and Shiho smacked him on the arm. “Yuuki and I watch you, Ryuuji! You _limp_ at the end of the day! Sometimes really bad. You won’t be able to walk by next year. You won’t be able to RUN.” She fixed him with a steady glare and breathed, like a dragon exhaling smoke, “You need to talk to Ren.”

Yuuki let himself fall gently onto the grass and scrambled out of the attack line. He tried to stay as far as he could from arguments but being friends with Ryuuji and his temper made that difficult. He'd never expected Shiho to be an instigator.

“ _It can wait_!”

And here was the famous temper, manifesting as if called by the mere thought.

“Shit, Shiho, it can fucking wait!” Ryuuji stomped the ground with right leg, his bad leg, to prove her wrong, and his eye twitched as he winced. “Ren lost his parents in July! His sister won’t leave her fucking room and it’s been over a month! She won’t talk to him! And his brother is a little shit who doesn’t talk either!” Anger painted his face, his cheeks stained red. “He needs me! If I’m fucked up too then how does that help?”

He stared Shiho down, and Yuuki was very uncomfortably reminded of his parents. It felt just then like another moment, any moment from any day, in his childhood home. Shiho wasn’t Shiho just then; she was his mother, slim but round-faced, and Ryuuji his father, his suit rumpled and wrinkles at the corner of his eyes. His mother wanted something － a new dress, a sewing machine, help around the house － and his father thought differently － he needed a new suit before she could buy a dress, why did she need a sewing machine if she couldn’t have dinner on the table when he got home, she had “the fucking kid” for help and why did she need more. They would start screaming. Sometimes they would throw things. 

Yuuki would have already escaped to the Amamiya house, shoes on as soon as the someone opened their mouth. Some days he didn’t go home at all.

“We can’t afford it!” Ryuuji was shouting, and Yuuki was brought back to the present. The yelling could probably be heard through the school's open windows. “I can’t be out of work for a year!”

“Talk. To. Your. Boyfriend.”

“I can’t do the surgery and the physical therapy!”

Ryuuji’s eyes were wide and his jaw clenched, and Yuuki wasn’t sure if it _was_ because of the money and Ren, or if he was remembering the first time he broke his leg.

Shiho softened. She held the fire in herself back, but the men both knew it was still there. 

She slid next to him and looked at him. Stared Ryuuji down until she knew he wasn’t stuck in his head, a fabulous though unnerving technique Yuuki had been on the receiving end of more than once. He watched her place both hands on their friend’s shoulders, and when she spoke, her voice was steady and calm.

“Ryuuji, I jumped from a roof,” she began, ignoring Yuuki’s sharp intake of breath. She kept her eyes on Ryuuji’s, now wide open in shock. “I broke a lot of shit. I went through a lot of surgeries. The doctors had to re-break my tibia when it didn’t heal correctly.” She paused, watching him, letting the words hit him, sink in, and then went on. “I am _still_ in physical therapy. And it _sucks_.”

Shiho squeezed his shoulders and smiled.

“If I can do that, you can get a surgery on your femur,” she assured him. “You can do the therapy again. And you’ll have so many people helping you this time－”

That was the wrong thing to say.

Sakamoto Ryuuji didn’t need _help_. Even Yuuki knew that.

Ryuuji shot off the bench and out of Shiho’s grasp like he’d been burned. The scowl was back, covering his face like a mask.

“I’m fine,” he snarled. “Look. I’m sorry that shit happened to you. But it’s different. Ren doesn’t need another fucking problem on his plate. Especially my stupid leg.”

“Your leg isn’t stupid!”

“Thanks for the concern, but I’m fine.” He snatched up the lunch Ren had packed for him, muttering about getting ready for his next class, and stormed off, making a conscious effort to keep his gait steady.

Shiho watched him go, looking somehow both crestfallen and furious. “That idiot.”

Yuuki sank down next to her, privately agreeing. He used to think himself a master of difficult people, thanks to his long friendship with one Amamiya Ren, but Ryuuji had just blown Ren right out of the water. Where Ren was quiet and composed, Ryuuji was loud and angry. Ren expressed his inner feelings through his eyes, through the slightest changes in body language; but Ryuuji’s innermost thoughts were seemingly laid bare, or else hidden even from himself. Yuuki had never before met anyone like Ryuuji.

He didn’t notice his hands were shaking until Shiho laid her own over them.

“You okay?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” he lied, and hated himself for lying. Shiho would have known something was wrong even if he hadn’t been shaking. They were so close and she just got him… If only he were a woman… 

“Are you?”

“Yeah,” she assured him, and Yuuki knew it was the truth because Shiho didn’t lie. It made him feel worse.

“Did you really… ?”

Shiho let go of his hands, placing her own in her lap. She stared vaguely in the direction of her shoes.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry!” Yuuki regretted asking immediately. “I just… didn’t know that about you.”

“No, it’s okay.” Shiho tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I don’t think about it a lot. I just thought Ryuuji needed to hear it.”

Yuuki nodded, an ugly feeling churning in the pit of his stomach. Yuuki was better friends with both Ren and Shiho, spent more time with them than Ryuuji ever could, yet Ren was dating Ryuuji, Shiho was dating Ryuuji’s best friend, _and_ she had told Ryuuji something terribly personal that even Yuuki hadn’t known. And probably Ryuuji’s best friend knew too.

He wondered if he should call his therapist.

Shiho smiled at him, endearingly, as if the past forty minutes hadn’t been spent in a muddle of shouting and disassociation and frustration and revelations. As if they’d only just spoken about Ryuuji’s students (and there he was, Ryuuji again) and their fight and the okama slur being thrown around so easily.

“We should follow that idiot.” Shiho jerked her head in the direction of the sports fields. “Classes will start soon.”

Yuuki nodded, his mind going a mile a minute. “You go on. I’ll catch up.”

Shiho shot him a sympathetic look and got to her feet, and Yuuki watched her walk away. He’d never questioned the braces she wore － the one on her knee or the one on her elbow. Lots of athletes wore braces, Yuuki included, and Shiho had told him she’d gone to university on an athletic scholarship. But today, with words like _jumped_ and _re-break_ and _roof_ ringing in his ears, he wondered if she wore them because…

He shook his head. He shouldn’t be thinking about that. He didn’t need to be thinking about that. It wasn’t any of his business anyway. If Shiho had wanted him to know, she would have told him. 

She had wanted Ryuuji to know.

Yuuki checked the time on his phone. 12:49. He had eleven minutes before his next class. That was enough time for a phone call. He scrolled through his contacts.

His need for order extended to even the most miniscule of things, right down to the organization of his phone contacts. He scrolled past Family, Work, Friends, and came to a stop under Doctors. He tapped the number for SONOMURA-HAKASE and tried to remember if he was also due for his monthly prescription refill.

The hold music stopped as the line clicked over.

“Moshi moshi. This is the Kageyama Outpatient Hospital. How may we be of service to you today?” asked the disembodied voice of the receptionist. He didn’t think he recognized this one.

Yuuki swallowed before speaking.

“Um. M-moshi moshi,” he stammered. He hated making phone calls. “My name is Mishima Yuuki? I’d, uh. I’d like to make an appointment with Sonomura-hakase?” He couldn’t help jiggling his foot anxiously. “I’m one of her patients,” he added.

Keyboard clacks came through the other end as she input his name. 

“Is this a traditional or non-traditional appointment?” the voice deadpanned. 

Not mentioning his prescription meant he wasn’t due for his refill.

Mother _fucker_.

“Uh. Non-traditional?”

More clacking.

“Hakase will have an availability this Saturday, if this suits you.”

Yuuki closed his eyes in relief. That was only three days away. “Yes. Yes, that would be wonderful.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fukuyama is a recurring, but very minor, character. If you've ever read the voice cast list for Persona 5, you know exactly who he is: the protagonist! I wanted to give the protag the opportunity to be a little something of everything in this series (you'll see soon what that means), and Fukuyama is exactly what Shujin (and everyone else) thought the P5 hero was supposed to be. A delinquent. A bully. A thief. A low life piece of shit. 
> 
> Okama: Please do not use this word. This word has a lot of varied meanings in Japanese and when I was flipping through lists upon lists of slang, derogatory words, and insults (oh I consulted sooo many), this one was used over and over. It can be used simply to be a homosexual man, and in many places exclusively refers to "transvestites" (to use the word from jisho.org), but it is often used in a derogatory fashion for gay men and effeminate men. I was really hoping, when I wrote this, to find something very bad, and the closest I came, and the word with the longest usage, was this one. 
> 
> Hakase 博士 is a word that means doctor, but specifically a doctor with a PhD. Sensei 先生 is another term used, but I very specifically wanted to convey that Yuuki's therapist was an extremely learned woman. Like sensei, hakase can also be used as a stand alone title.
> 
> Therapy in Japan is... Honestly, nearly non-existent. Maki Sonomura from P1 (on whom Yuuki's therapist is based) became a children's therapist and we know Maruki is in P5R, which leads one to believe that therapists are common and the notion of going to one is accepted. It is not. It was very hard to find any information for any of my Japanese therapy research, in either language. Seeking mental help is seen as shameful in Japan, and if a person admits to needing it at all (most do not, as "mental health" as a concept is, to my understanding, not well understood), their primary care doctor will prescribe them medication. (I could not find what sort of medication that was.) I decided to call that a "traditional" appointment in this story. A "non-traditional" appointment is what I decided would be something more familiar to a Western audience: that is, speaking to his doctor for an extended amount of time about his problems. 
> 
> Let's be honest here. We all played Persona. At least one of those games. We all know that there are many, many kids there that need help but the one I see neglected the most is Yuuki Mishima. Very few people ever mention that he was an abuse victim too, and he was treated more poorly than the other boys on the volleyball team. He was made to blackmail people he knew, and he walked around with extremely visible injuries that really could not have been explained as training accidents. For all we know, he was treated as badly as Shiho, and no one, not even his parents, gave a damn; and the game gives you some truly terrible ways to be a perfect shit to him. The boys' trauma in P5 gets glossed over quite a bit, but Yuuki's was downright erased, even by the fanbase. I took that poor boy and his suffering, gave him a good set of parents for guidance (Tatsujun, obvs, not his biological parents), and threw him into therapy because boy needs it badly. Don't even @ me, I love Mishima.


	14. Shinjiro (Part 1)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinjiro is keeping secrets from Minako.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Mild child abuse, crossdressing, mystery illness, mild fat shaming,

**新垣真次郎** **Aragaki Shinjiro**

When Shinjiro was a little boy, he used to lie awake at night and wonder. As he listened to the deep breaths of the other children, Shinjiro would wonder what he’d done to get to this place, and what he’d have to do to get out. No one wanted to adopt the scrawny, dirty brat with the scowl and the black eyes, after all.

He’d wonder about his parents, because who carries a child for nine months, who brings a child into the world, just to leave the hospital alone?

He’d wonder if his new parents would leave him too. If he ever got new parents.

“Hey, Shinji,” came a whisper, and Shinjiro did not have to look to place its owner. “You awake?”

Akihiko’s voice carried over the sleeping forms of the other boys who shared their dorm. Sister Margaret no longer let the two place their futons beside each other at night, but all that really accomplished was annoying the other boys because Shinji still couldn’t sleep and Aki still couldn’t shut the fuck up.

“Didja see that, Shinji?” Aki was barely visible in the dark, pointing out their one window.

Shinjiro yawned, his voice floating down the room to his friend. “See what, Aki?”

“The shooting star!”

Someone sleepily swatted at Akihiko, who grunted and hit back in the way boys do, while insisting, “There’s a shooting star, Shinji! Make a wish!”

“I wish you’d stop talking!” hissed someone. Nobu, maybe.

Shinjiro didn’t believe in wishes. Wishes hadn’t made his parents come for him and take him away, hadn’t made any of those couples pick him as their desired son, and wishes never kept him out of trouble with the sisters. He listened as Aki got in a scuffle with the swatter and the hisser and then he had to join the fray － Akihiko was useless without him － and when Sister Elizabeth stormed in to find the source of the noise only to find the entire dorm awake, futons in a heap, and half the boys with scrapes and black eyes, he and Aki were each given a good beating and sent back to bed.

It was always him and Aki.

He lay awake, listening to the grumblings of little boys, and － for Aki, because he didn’t believe － made a wish.

Years later, after all of the tears, the fights, the lies; after all of the nights he felt so alive and all of the nights he wanted to die, Shinjiro thought of the little boy he used to be.

He thought of Naoto, without whom he would definitely be dead. Naoto, who by chance had stumbled upon him, beaten, bloody, and broken, on the worst night of his life, and instead of running away like any sane person, he had gingerly hefted Shinjiro up, not caring that it meant staining his shirt, and started to half drag, half carry him down the street.

“Why… are you…” (he paused to spit some blood on the pavement) “helping me?” Shinjiro had asked through gritted teeth.

And Naoto replied simply, “Because you need it.”

Shinjiro thought of Shion, whose voice woke him that next day, and all the boxes of clothes she had gifted him with, however apprehensively, at Naoto’s behest, because Shinjiro owned nothing at that moment but the ones on his back. Shion, who refused to let him pay her back, who told him he was doing her a favor by taking them off her hands. 

He thought of Eikichi, who accepted him － bruised and bandaged and broken － every night at the Stray Sheep without question, and paid for his drinks out of his own pocket when Naoto offered Shinjiro a job － the first real, legitimate job of his life. These people loved him.

He thought about Akihiko, his first ever friend from that awful orphanage, his brother through thick and thin, and how furiously Aki had tried to help him. How Aki had dragged him back to the group home after school so he’d make curfew, smacked the cigarettes out of his hand, thrust homework at him and begged him to go to school. How badly Aki had tried to stay in touch when Shinjiro did none of those things, when Shinjiro instead shook him off, and followed the darkly wrapped promise of a better life. He thought of how hard Aki had cried when, after fifteen years Shinjiro used Naoto’s cell phone and rasped out, “Aki, I’m back. I left them, and I’m never going back.”

Shinjiro turned his head to look at Minako, who’d stayed over again, sound asleep in his favorite shirt, her hair loose and wild over the pillow. Here was a woman who had seen him from all sides, had seen him broken but healing shortly after meeting Naoto, and found him interesting enough to come back to the Stray Sheep － this straight-laced, goody-goody girl coming in repeatedly to the most well known homo haven in Shinjuku to see  _ him _ , just another banged up thug. Here was a woman who didn’t care that he lived in some crappy apartment, filled with secondhand furniture, in the shitty end of Yongen-Jaya. Who didn’t care that he was an orphan with no claim to his family name or that he came from a seedy past. To her, he was just Shinjiro, and she loved him.

His wish, the only wish he ever made, on the night of the shooting star all those years ago, had been for a family to call his own. As a child, watching couple after couple choose child after child while he himself had been left behind, he’d been angry with himself for believing for even a second in Aki’s stupid shooting star. 

But now every night, as he watched Shion tease Eikichi, watched Naoto shed his Naoko-san persona, watched Minako play with Tadakichi, and watched the texts pour in from Akihiko, Shinjiro knew he’d finally found his family.

* * *

Naoto and Akihiko were the only people who knew everything.

He couldn’t tell Minako about his years in the Shiryō Syndicate. She knew he’d been in a gang, but he’d never named names. He couldn’t tell her he’d been one of the dead who couldn’t die, that he’d lived and breathed those words for fifteen long, dark years.

Minako didn’t know the things he’d done in the name of Shiryō. But Akihiko did. Akihiko did, which is why he’d joined the police academy after high school, why he’d worked every Shiryō case, no matter how weak the connection. Why he’d fought tooth and nail for fifteen years to get Shinjiro out.

Naoto did. After Shion had left that first day, boxes of clothes in her wake, after Shinjiro had vehemently refused to allow Naoto to take him to the hospital, had denied being left for dead as victim of a gay hate crime, his savior had suspected something was wrong. He had told Shinjiro he would help only if Shinjiro were honest with him. And really, what choice did Shinjiro have?

He told Naoto everything that day, answered every question posed; and when he asked some months later why Naoto had trusted him even after that, his friend replied, “A guy doesn’t look as bad as you did that night if he’s still in bed with a gang.”

So when he began to feel pain in his head, and it wasn’t a headache, he texted Akihiko. When it began to radiate down his arm and caused him to drop a plate, fish splattering his shoes, Naoto pulled him aside as Tadakichi greedily snatched the ruined meal from the floor.

“Are you okay?” Naoto asked, and it was so surreal to hear Naoto’s normal deep voice coming from Naoko’s painted face during business hours. Naoto never dropped the facade while customers were in the bar.

“It’s just a plate, Nao…” Shinjiro shifted uncomfortably.

His friend and boss raised a perfectly painted eyebrow. “You haven’t been yourself for a few weeks,” he said uncertainly, clapping him gently on the shoulder. 

It had been meant as a gesture of concern, of friendship and closeness, and Shinjiro knew that, but in the moment pain shot through him and he had to snap his jaw shut before his “FUCK!” echoed out of the kitchen and into the bar.

“What?” Naoto yelped, snatching his hand away and jumping back, kimono sleeves flying. “What did I do?”

Tadakichi looked up from his ill-gotten meal at the noise as Shinjiro very gingerly cradled his arm, wincing. It felt like it was burning from the inside, and only once the feeling started to ebb was he able to grunt, “Nothing. Just hurts.” And he would not meet Naoto’s eyes.

Because Naoto was looking at him. Even with his face painted white, even through the layers of mascara, it was still the same look he’d given Shinjiro last spring.  _ I’ll let you stay here if you’re honest with me. _

And Shinjiro had always been honest with Naoto.

Naoto listened without judgement, but when he was done speaking, Shinjiro was sure his friend was going to hit him. Akihiko would have.

“You need to go to the doctor,” Naoto insisted, his perfectly painted mouth set in a deep frown.

“It’s just a little pain,” Shinjiro protested.

Naoto glared at him. “You dropped a dish because your arm was suddenly too weak to hold it. That’s  _ concerning _ , Shinji,” he fumed, nostrils flaring.

“Maybe I slept on it weird?”

“Call a doctor,” his boss ordered. “I’ll have Shion help back here t－”

“No!”

His protest came out more forcefully than Shinjiro had intended. He drew back.

“I mean. That’s okay, Nao,” he mumbled sheepishly. “I can handle it myself.” At the other man’s dubious expression, he added, “I’ll ask if I need help. Promise.”

This seemed to satisfy his friend, because Shinjiro had never been shy about asking for help. (The entirety of the Stray Sheep had Shinjiro asking question after question for nearly a week the first time he’d set foot in it.) He checked his reflection passively in the window of the kitchen door, gave Shinjiro’s good arm a motherly squeeze, and drifted back into the bar as Naoko, the transition seamless.

It went unspoken that they would not tell Minako.

* * *

Thursdays were the best day of the week. Minako would stay over on Wednesday nights and she and Shinjiro would spend Thursday － all of Thursday, her day off from Jun’s － together. Not just the haphazard few minutes between customers at the Stray Sheep and sleepy subway ride home.

Sometimes they went out, to the park with Tadakichi or the aquarium or the Dome. Sometimes they hung out with Minako’s friends or Aki. (Akihiko was forever trying to get his wife to join them, but Mitsuru knew of Shinjiro’s past and also knew that Shinjiro rejoining polite society was the reason Akihiko had turned in his badge. To say she wasn’t fond of him was an understatement.)

Sometimes they would stay in and watch television, or cook. Shinjiro loved cooking and he was good at it, which was the entire reason Naoto had offered him his job, and he loved cooking with Minako, who didn’t know half of anything about cooking but was always eager to be taught, watching Shinjiro speak with passion. 

And sometimes they would stay in bed all day, doing things adults do. Shinjiro preferred no activity over the other, so long as Minako was there with him.

(He knew if Eikichi ever heard him say something like that, he’d be hearing “whipped!” every day until he died. Whatever.)

Shinjiro was getting used to the ever present head pain. As long as he didn’t stand up too fast, it was usually bearable. Irritating as shit, but bearable. The muscle weakness and fatigue, however, were new, and not something he was familiar with or equipped to handle. He never had any energy anymore, laying on the couch with Tadakichi being the most activity he could handle most days; and he had nearly dropped Minako last night when he’d tried to carry her to bed. He’d had to feign tiredness as a lame excuse, all desire sapped from him the moment the words left his mouth.

Around two in the afternoon, cute pop music started blaring out of nowhere. 

“Minako!” Shinjiro propped himself up on his elbows and called over the back of the couch. “Mina, your phone!”

“Woof!” added Tadakichi.

“Coming!”

His girlfriend came dashing out of his room. “Who is it?”

“I didn’t look.”

“Why not?”

“Do I need to?”

“Yes,” she said, snatching her phone from the side table. “It could be my other boyfriend.” She laughed and dodged the pillow Shinjiro threw at her, and looked down at the screen. “Oh! It’s Jun’s…” 

He sat up and tried to keep a neutral expression. In his experience, if Jun’s called, it was because her boss needed her to come in. 

“Go answer it,” he said quietly.

“I’m sorry…” She kissed him, just a peck, in apology, and called for Tadakichi. “Tada, do you need to go out? C’mon.” 

Shinjiro watched his girlfriend and his dog slip out the front door and sighed. It figured she’d get called in today. He grabbed his phone, intending to play Bubble Shoot while he waited for the inevitable, but instead he opened his messenger app to text Akihiko. 

There were some things a guy could only tell his brother － Shinjiro didn’t think he could relay his bedroom failure to Naoto. He saw the man every day, and besides, it would only increase Nao’s nagging to see a doctor. Aki would just give him shit, and that was something Shinjiro could take.

**CHAT WITH AKI**

**> Shinjiro< **aki 

**> Shinjiro< **i need advice 

**> Shinjiro< **it’s important 

**> Shinjiro< **bitch answer me 

**< Akihiko>** bitch some of us WORK during the day

**> Shinjiro< **what work? you ain’t a cop anymore 

**< Akihiko>** been a personal trainer for the past year,  shinji

**> Shinjiro< **tellin fat ppl they’re fat ain’t a job 

**> Shinjiro< **ur just a trophy husband

**< Akihiko>** a trophy husband who gets paid to call  ppl fat XD

**< Akihiko> **whaddya need? my next client’s here in  ten and i still need to drink my shake

**> Shinjiro< **protein? 

**< Akihiko>** PROTEIN

**> Shinjiro< **i feel like shit 

**< Akihiko>** u should, ur an asshole

**< Akihiko>** c wat i did there

**> Shinjiro< **NO 

**> Shinjiro< **like my body feels like shit. i’m  always tired, everything hurts, my  skull feels like it’s gonna crack open

**< Akihiko>** u need protein

**> Shinjiro< **i feel like i’m 100 

**> Shinjiro< **FFS AKI IM SERIOUS 

**< Akihiko>** shit sorry

**< Akihiko>** u told minako? she prolly knows a ton  of doctors cuz of her brother

**> Shinjiro< **i’m not tellin Minako <

**< Akihiko>** wat? y?

**> Shinjiro< **aki 

**> Shinjiro< **i know this is hard for u 

**> Shinjiro< **but PLZ use ur brain ffs 

**< Akihiko>** hey!

**< Akihiko>** wtf

**> Shinjiro< **she’s super in denial her brother’s  dying

**> Shinjiro< **her father figure just died 

**> Shinjiro< **she’ll freak the FUCK out if i tell  her any of this

**< Akihiko>** i mean

**< Akihiko>** yea prolly

**< Akihiko>** but like i know mitsuru would kill me  if i was u

**> Shinjiro< **don’t u roleplay freaky shit like  that on the reg?

**< Akihiko>** shhh

**< Akihiko> **at least go to the doctor, shinji. all that  shit sounds bad, man

**> Shinjiro< **i KNOW 

**> Shinjiro< **naoto’s been on my ass about it 

**< Akihiko>** so fuckin GO

**< Akihiko>** !!!

Shinjiro heard a whine and the sound of footsteps and stuffed his phone in his pocket just as Minako returned. Tadakichi shot past her to the tiny kitchen for some water and kibble, nails clicking once he reached the linoleum.

Shinjiro swept his hair out his eyes and watched Minako toe her shoes off. “Everything okay?” he asked calmly, as if his heart wasn’t hammering. As if he wasn’t keeping a secret.

Minako beamed at him.

“That was Ren-san. He said starting tomorrow, I’m officially manager of Jun’s!”

A grin broke out over Shinjiro’s face and he threw his arms out, meeting her halfway across the room and hugging her tight. “Minako, that’s awesome!”

He pulled her close and kissed the top of her head, ignoring the dizziness from having stood up so suddenly. He took her face in his hands and kissed her and then kissed her again.

“Manager Minako’s got a nice ring to it,” he chuckled.

“Now you’ve got to get your act together and get promoted too,” his girlfriend said cheekily. He laughed.

“I don’t have the figure to be a manager at my job,”

“You’d look great as a woman!”

“I’d look like a man in a woman’s kimono!”

Tadakichi, attracted to the laughter and raised voices, trotted out curiously, barking, and proceeded to run circles around them, adding to the noise.

Finally, Shinjiro thought, tucking his health and doctors into a corner of his mind, Minako had a piece of  _ good _ news. Finally something had happened that made her smile instead of cry. He tangled his fingers in her hair and covered her laughing mouth with his. She wrapped her arms around him, grabbing fistfuls of his shirt, and, with his heart racing and Tadakichi yipping excitedly, Shinjiro was happier than he’d been in a long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Adoption is a funny thing in Japan. It DOES happen a lot - to adults. Usually these are adults (nearly always men) who are adopted by a family and assume the adoptive's family name in order to take on an important family business. (This nearly always accompanies the marriage of the family's daughter, if the family has one.) But adoption of children is actually quite uncommon, and from what I've read, it seems the foster system doesn't really exist. Adoption of children is seen as something almost shameful, with many couples actually moving to new wards or entire cities once they do it. (Think of the "I never knew I was adopted" stories but taken to the extreme.) It's normal for most orphaned children to grow up in group homes (I used orphanage here because of Shinjiro's age) until they're legally adults. I chose to place Shinjiro and Akihiko in a Catholic orphanage (hence Sisters Margaret and Elizabeth) because from my research, it seems most /orphanages/ were Catholic-run.
> 
> Naoto is a man, and yes he is a reference to Persona 4's Naoto. I originally made him a crossdresser under the name Naoko before I'd even established what the Stray Sheep was - a shoutout to Lala-chan, who many people believe is a crossdresser and also a shoutout to the many, many genderbend and trans!Naoto fics and art in the P4 community. He was originally going to be just a friend of Shinjiro's, and then turned into something a bit important with the establishment of the Stray Sheep. He asks if Shinji is a victim of a hate crime when they first met due to working in such close proximity with the LGBTQ community.
> 
> For those of you who may be confused - to Shinjiro, Naoto is always Naoto. When Naoto is at work or attending something in a work capacity (he did crossdress at Tatsujun's funeral), he is always Naoko. -to is a more masculine suffix for names, with -ko is a feminine suffix. He is always in character as Naoko during working hours. (For those of you who played P4, that's also the reason Naoto's parents named her NaoTO. They thought she'd be discriminated against in male-dominated fields if she were named Naoko.)


	15. Ren (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren gets off to a rocky start this morning, and it's all downhill from there when he receives a mysterious and _angry_ phone call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Mentions of sex/off screen sex, referenced homophobia, blatant gay bashing, offensive LGBTQ slurs
> 
> *********************
> 
> Hey guys, if you like the story, leave a comment! Don't be shy! I'm horribly self conscious and I haven't ever posted any work online before. ^_^;;

**雨宮蓮** **Amamiya Ren**

Routine had started to settle in at Ren and Ryuuji’s, especially now that second semester had started. Ryuuji smacked at his phone until the alarm shut off every morning around five, turned on the coffee maker (he didn’t like coffee, but Ren did), and left the apartment for his morning run. Sometimes he ran as many as five kilometers before returning home, where he would wake Ren (with varying degrees of gentleness, depending entirely on the level of Ren's snark) and do several sets of pull ups on the bar he’d reinstalled in the doorway of their master bath. (The bar used to hang in Ryuuji’s workout room, but the room had been claimed as Shinya’s bedroom.) Ren sometimes stayed in bed as his boyfriend finished exercising, due to tiredness, laziness, or both. 

“Eighteen… nineteen… twenty...”

Ren, flat on his back, arm over his eyes and legs tangled in the sheets, listened as Ryuuji counted out his third and final set of twenty, dropping down to the carpet with a soft _thump_. He heard the quiet sounds of clothing being shucked off, and then the padding of feet heading towards him. He didn’t move, kept feigning sleep.

“Hey,” came Ryuuji’s voice. “Ren-Ren. You need to get up.”

He waited for Ren to respond. Ren continued to feign sleep.

“I’m getting in the shower, Ren-Ren. You need to get up.”

He waited. Ryuuji had already tried to wake him up before, and the more attempts he made, the more… unpredictably he acted.

Ren lived for it.

There was a slight dip in the bed as Ryuuji sat down, his thigh pressed against Ren’s through the sheets. Ren imagined Ryuuji staring at him, chewing his lip. Ryuuji was not a patient man, and he did not like repeating himself.

“ _Ren-Ren_.”

Ren knew that tone.

He knew it, that breathy, deviant voice, and it took every ounce of concentration not to give up the charade right then, his skin flushing. He heard his boyfriend give a quiet chuckle, and he knew exactly why, felt the blood rush between his legs, and he couldn’t stop the soft noise that escaped him as he felt Ryuuji’s hand run up his side.

Damnit.

Ryuuji leaned over him, his skin hot through Ren’s t-shirt. His breath was hot too, and Ren groaned involuntarily at the feel of Ryuuji’s lips on the sensitive skin of his neck. Ryuuji grinned, the bastard.

“ _Anata_ ,” he breathed, his lips pressing feather light, “it’s time to get up.”

And Ren couldn’t take it. Not this early. Ryuuji had always been able to break him with the barest touch, and Ren was pliant and putty beneath him. His boyfriend’s body was a warm weight against his, one hand now tangled in Ren’s tousled hair and the other inching up under his shirt, scratching lightly with his nails. Ren shivered. He trailed his fingers along Ryuuji’s jaw and pulled the other man close, kissing him hungrily and smiling against his lips.

“Oh,” he murmured, peering through his lashes, “I’m up.”

* * *

By 7:00 Ren had made breakfast and packed five lunches. He’d joined Ryuuji in the shower long enough to feel clean after they’d had their fun － he’d discovered early on that he felt _very_ awkward seeing his siblings afterward if he hadn’t showered － but Ryuuji liked to _soak_ , staying in the water until it ran cold. Something about it being good for the muscles.

Pouring himself his second cup of coffee, Ren put the dirtied dishes in the sink and waited. Shinya was usually good about waking up on time, Ren had found, and sure enough, his little brother shuffled in about fifteen minutes later, still in his pajamas and rubbing at his eyes but awake.

“Morning,” Ren chirped.

Shinya didn’t look at him － a tell-tale sign he was annoyed － and poured his own coffee. Like Ren, he took it black.

“Shinya?”

“You and your boyfriend are loud,” his brother said flatly. He took his coffee and sat down heavily, yawning, before picking up his chopsticks. As casually as mentioning the weather.

Fuck.

Ren shifted uncomfortably. 

_Fuck_.

Shinya had _heard_ them _._

_Shinya had heard him and Ryuuji having sex._

Fuck fuck fuck.

Ren left the kitchen very quickly, coffee sloshing over the rim and onto his hand.

Ryuuji was naked when Ren burst into their room, hot air cascading from the open bathroom door. The muscles in his back rippled as he hung up his towel. At the same time, Ren shut the bedroom door and just stood there, feet rooted to the floor, coffee in hand.

Ryuuji raised an eyebrow. “Even if I drank that shit, I don’t think we’d be fast enough for round two,” he laughed, and then he, beautiful, cocky shit that he was, winked.

Ren drank his coffee shakily. He hardly tasted it. He watched Ryuuji slide first boxer briefs and then track pants up his muscular legs. The long white scar on Ryuuji’s bad leg disappeared underneath the fabric as he tried with difficulty to render what he wanted to say in plain Japanese. 

Ryuuji noticed Ren staring and shook his ass, grinning. “Like what you see?” 

Ren could only smile weakly, and that concerned his boyfriend.

“What’s up?” he asked, pulling a t-shirt over his head. “Everything okay?”

When Ren didn’t reply, Ryuuji reached for his hand and gently extracted the coffee cup, placing it on their dresser. It was safer there － Ren had been gripping it so tightly, shaking, that it would have ended up on the floor.

“Okay, let’s put this down…”

He put his other hand on Ren’s shoulder comfortingly and gave him his best smile.

“Ren-Ren, it can’t be that bad,” Ryuuji assured him, worried now but hiding it. “What’s going on?”

And Ren was normally so composed, so sure of himself. It wasn’t like him to be rendered speechless. This sort of behavior was not normal for him, and he couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt like this. He took a moment.

“My brother,” he started. (He paused for so long here that certainly Ryuuji deserved a joke for not cracking a joke to break the tension.)

“Shinya,” Ren tried again, “told me. He heard us. Earlier.”

It wasn’t that Ren was in the closet. Ren was a gay man, very happily in a relationship with another man. He frequented gay bars and clubs, he took his boyfriend on dates － sometimes on double dates － and his friends and family all knew about it. He’d never tried to hide his boyfriends and had never been shy about introducing Ryuuji explicitly as such.

But Ren was an exceedingly closed off, private man. He did not favor public displays of affection, nor did he like discussing his personal life to those outside his circle of friends. He never spoke about personal life at work. Few of his colleagues even knew he was in a relationship, and until his parents passed, they probably didn’t even know he’d had parents at all. Ren just didn’t feel it was their business.

Not like Ryuuji. Ryuuji would tell everyone in Japan if Ren let him. Ryuuji had told his coworkers about their dates, he had told his friends, his mother, his sister. Ryuuji was an open book. He knew why Ren felt this way, and after Ren had explained where the line was, Ryuuji had done his best to respect and not cross it.

But this. 

Ren could see that Ryuuji didn’t get it. 

It gave him anxiety.

“Well shit, that’s embarrassing.”

Ryuuji at least had the good grace to flush a little pink at the cheeks, but he smiled as he pressed his lips to the tip of Ren’s nose. “He’ll get over it. I don’t think we fucked him up or anything.”

“It’s not that.”

Ren didn’t know how to make Ryuuji understand. Ryuuji had always been gay, always been out, always been _proud_. He’d had both a mother and a father. He wasn’t the son of a disgraced cop, fired for loving another man. He didn’t grow up in the “okama house.” He could and did fight back whenever anyone threw an insult or a punch at him, whereas Ren had always had to keep his head down, his mouth shut. Ren had always had to be the bigger man, ignore the taunts and never fight back.

Because he had two fathers. Because he was also gay like his fathers. Ren had always had to hide, from everyone. His first kiss, his first boyfriend, his first time, they had all happened in secret. He’d hidden at school, at university, at work. He especially hid at work… 

“Hey…”

Ryuuji had brought his hand to Ren’s cheek. His expression had softened. The jokes were gone.

“Get out of your head, dummy,” he chided gently. He used the pad of his thumb to softly boop Ren on the nose, hoping the silly gesture would bring him back to Earth. 

“It’s okay.” The words were gentle but firm. “Look at me.” He brushed some of the hair out of Ren’s face. 

“Anata, it’s okay. You’re okay,” Ryuuji murmured reassuringly. “It’s just Shinya, just your brother. _He knows you’re gay, Ren-Ren._ ” He smiled, his eyes never leaving Ren’s.

“Listen to me.” Ryuuji leaned close to press their foreheads together. “Shinya’s your brother. It’s not bad for you that he heard us. It’s embarrassing － but _not_ bad. We live together, we have for years － he _knows_ we have sex.” He stroked a small spot by Ren’s ear with his thumb. “He doesn’t care. Really. I promise you, he does. Not. Care. And you know he loves you and won’t use this against you.” 

He nuzzled his nose against Ren’s. “He’s your brother, and he loves you. You’re here with me, and I love you. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You’re okay.” He paused, to let those words sink in. “Anata, you’re okay. Okay?”

There was nothing right then but him and Ryuuji. Ryuuji knew how to make him feel safe and secure, to keep him grounded in the present. He didn’t often have attacks like this, but Ryuuji knew what Ren needed to hear to keep him from getting stuck in his own head, stuck back in his terrifying teenage years. 

Ren listened to the soft, steady tone of his boyfriend’s voice and breathed in sync with his boyfriend’s soft, steady breathing. His hands found Ryuuji’s and he held them against his face. He felt much calmer now than when he’d come in.

“Okay?” Ryuuji murmured..

Ren exhaled and nodded against Ryuuji’s forehead. “Okay,” he whispered. “I’m okay.”

And Ryuuji smiled and repeated the words － “You’re okay” － and waited until Ren could say them again － “I’m okay” － and then slowly lifted his head to press his lips to Ren’s forehead. He did not let go of Ren until Ren let go of him.

“That coffee is making you paranoid,” Ryuuji joked, only once he was sure Ren was grounded again, and that was the last either of them said on the subject. Ren did not, could not, talk about how his own brother had left him feeling so exposed.

Shinya had left for school while Ren and Ryuuji were alone (Ryuuji knocked on Futaba’s door to see if she would be going too, but as usual there was no answer), stacking his dirty dishes neatly in the sink. He’d also left a note on the table, which Ren read while Ryuuji helped himself to breakfast.

_Ren-chan,_

_It’s not a big deal. It’s just gross. Calm down._

* * *

To everyone’s surprise, upon returning to work, Ren had requested to be placed on desk duty. Desk duty was often doled out to interns or as a punishment, and Ren was asked multiple times if he was sure.

“I feel we may have missed something in the mystery murderer case,” he’d explained, “and it will give me a chance to catch up on what I’ve missed during my leave.”

There had been two new murders while Ren was gone, bringing the total number of deaths to six, and they still had no suspects. Anyone who so much as mentioned the word _tetrodotoxin_ (the only thing linking the victims together) within earshot of Commissioner Sato-san could expect a brutal chewing out and a twelve hour day reviewing street camera footage.

With how much Ren still needed to do with his parents’ estate, access to a computer was a must. He was also still getting dozens of phone calls, many of which he actually needed to answer, and he couldn’t do that in the field. Now that the funeral was over, most of the calls came from his lawyer.

So when Ren came back from the cafeteria, melon bread in hand, and heard his cell phone go off, he dug it out of his pocket and answered it without looking.

“Moshi moshi,” he said, pinning the phone between his shoulder and ear and pulling the case file of Victim #4 closer.

“Moshi moshi. Am I speaking to Amamiya Ren?” 

The voice on the other end of the line was exceedingly formal, using keigo of a sort Ren was not familiar. If Jun hadn’t spoken in keigo while running the flower shop, Ren would never have recognized the speech pattern. He sat up a little straighter in his chair, the melon bread and Victim #4 a little less important right now.

“Yes. And who is this?”

“I am Kashihara Nobutoshi.”

The name wasn’t familiar, but few were lately. The man used “wagahai” for _I_ , so he was likely an older (most likely arrogant, judging by his tone) man. Tatsuya used to mock Jun using the pronoun when he was angry.

“How may I help you, Kashihara-san?” Ren decided to keep his own tone perfectly pleasant and polite.

“I understand you are attempting to purchase a burial plot, Amamiya,” Kashihara said. His voice abruptly grew cold. “You may help me by understanding that you have no claim to the Kashihara crypt.”

Ren frowned. “I’m sorry,” he said slowly, not comprehending. “Did one of my inquiries push your bid out?” Space in Tokyo cemeteries was scarce and expensive, and there was no Amamiya family plot sheltering Amamiya ancestors waiting for Jun and Tatsuya. They weren’t really Amamiyas.

“Don’t pretend to be unintelligent.” Kashihara still spoke in the formal keigo, but his tone was anything but polite. “That boy renounced his right to be buried in the family crypt thirty years ago.”

Ren took a deep breath in through his nose and out his mouth. He didn’t understand what this man was talking about. 

“Kashihara-san, I apologize,” he demurred, “but I don’t follow you. I don’t know anyone with the name Kashihara. Do you have the correct－”

“ _Jun_ ,” Kashihara spat. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

Ren froze. 

He only knew one Jun.

And he knew Amamiya was not his papa’s birth name.

“I told that boy I would disown him if he ran off with that faggot,” Kashihara seethed. “He knew that meant there would be no money, no burial, _nothing_ for his bastards － that’s _you,_ boy.”

Ren couldn’t speak. He could only sit there, phone to his ear. The department forgotten, his colleagues and the interns forgotten. Just him and the voice in his ear.

“And that cocksucker did it! Up and walked out on his future, his _family_ , for an okama cop who got himself fired within the year! He’s been an embarrassment to this family for thirty years － the greatest shame of my life!” Kashihara raged. “At least he understood what fucking _disownment_ meant. His existence was an embarrassment, but I’ll give him one thing － that faggot never asked me for a fucking thing. Not _once_.”

Ren was shaking. He felt very hot and very cold all at once. 

“And then,” Jun’s father continued, “after _thirty fucking years_ , after I get to celebrate that my inferior genes have finally died, I get a call from Fushima Shrine saying that someone is trying to bury the ashes of Amamiya _fucking_ Jun _with the fucking okama he left the family for_. Is that your idea of a sick joke? Bury the faggots in our family crypt?”

For several moments there were no sounds save for Kashihara’s ragged breathing. 

“Fushima is for Kashiharas. He has had no claim to that name for _thirty years_ ,” Kashihara snarled. “He has no inheritance. He has _nothing. You_ have nothing. He took that bullshit made up name and _that_ is what he was. My son died thirty years ago. I have nothing to do with any _Amamiyas_.”

Silence.

“Do we understand each other, _Amamiya_?”

The way he said _Amamiya_ sounded like he’d stepped in something disgusting.

“Yes,” Ren managed. He could hardly breathe. 

“Good. Believe me, I enjoyed this conversation less than you.” Kashihara sounded almost pleasant again, like he had at the start. “I do not want to have to speak to you again.” 

He hung up without a goodbye. 

Ren sat in stunned silence, the phone still at his ear. So many questions pushed at the back of his mind, unable to pass through the wall of shock in his brain. His fingers gripped his cell phone tightly, its screen dark and mute.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that. The office messenger program on his computer _ping_ ed a few times but Ren was only dimly aware of the sound. He was not even aware of Goro’s appearance in the unit sometime later, only noticed once the other man stood before him, waving a hand in front of his face.

“Ren-kun?”

Ren’s eyes slowly came back into focus, and with some difficulty, he dragged them up to look at Goro’s face. Goro looked amused. He didn’t know. He hadn’t just… Well. Ren couldn’t even put into words what he’d just experienced, much less what Goro hadn’t.

The hand was back in his face.

“If you don’t want to, you can just say so, Ren-kun,” Goro was saying. “I won’t be offended.”

“What?”

Goro huffed, his bangs fluttering gently against his forehead.

Ren shook his head. He was at work. He needed to keep himself together. 

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I’ve been having an off day.”

He realized he was still holding the phone, the call long since ended, and quickly put it down.

“That’s quite alright. It’s to be expected, with your current circumstances,” Goro said kindly. His eyes swept Ren’s desk － the unopened case files of victims four through eight, the melon bread dropped hastily over a blank notepad, PD database pulled up on the computer but no search begun, the unanswered messenger window blinking.

“I came up to ask if you’d want to grab a bit of food with me.” Ren could see him piecing together that something was wrong; damn that man and his attention to detail. “Melon bread is not lunch, Ren.”

Ren nearly protested. He really did. He wanted to go over that disturbing phone call, and he did have quite a lot of work to catch up on. But Goro was one of his closest friends, and more than that, Goro was _sharp_. 

If Ren spoke to Yuuki about Kashihara, Yuuki would fret over him, and the takeaway would be to call another shrine about his parents’ bones’ internment. Ryuuji would be furious － on Jun’s behalf and because Kashihara had spoken in such an awful manner. But Goro…

Goro would listen quietly, taking notes even. He had an eye for detail, and － most important － Goro spoke in keigo, and spoke it often. There may be nuances in the formal conjugations that Ren had not been able to pick up on.

“Sure,” he said amiably. “What were you in the mood for?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes**
> 
> _Anata _means "you." I did a lot of hunting around for pet names, because Ren and Ryuuji seem like the type of couple who may use them. Surprisingly, pet names are not very common in Japan. I had to hunt around in a lot of language forums to get this information and talk to a lot of very obliging native speakers. The common consensus is that, if a pet name is going to be used, the word is _anata_ or _kimi_. Both of these words mean "you." (In this context, they're also commonly written in hiragana, just like "you," which further complicates things.) In Japanese, addressing someone as "you" is very uncommon. It seems to indicate a lack of respect towards the person by not using their name. In Japanese, Ryuuji would not say to Ren "You need to get up," he would say "Ren needs to get up," speaking in third person. I'm not entirely sure why _anata_ and _kimi_ would be chosen as pet names - perhaps to convey an intimacy that surpasses names - but that's what I learned. It seems _anata_ is directed towards men/the masculine half of the couple and _kimi_ towards the woman/feminine half.__
> 
> _  
> _I very much hope what I tried to portray with Shinya hearing Ren and Ryuuji having sex came across properly. I want to stress that if I'd written Ren with a woman/as straight, he still would have freaked out. My Ren is a very quiet, private person; and because he was bullied when he was younger, the idea of "being caught" scares the shit out of him, even though he's well aware that his brother doesn't give two fucks about who Ren sleeps with. His panic response overrides his logic in that scene._  
>  _
> 
> _  
> __-chan_ is usually a term of affection reserved for girls and small children and animals, but it can also be used between siblings. Shinya, who rarely uses honorifics for his siblings, called Ren _Ren-chan_ in his note in an attempt to soothe Ren and let him know that although that he was just annoyed at having to hear it. _  
>  _
> 
> _  
> _Reminder that keigo 敬語 is the formal way the Japanese speak and that there are many different levels of formality, with different verb conjugations, nouns, and pronouns. Most Japanese know and understand most levels of formal speech, but there are a few which the common person would not ordinarily use and most likely would not understand properly (for example, there is a level of speech reserved solely for speaking with the emperor, and another level for speaking ABOUT the emperor). [As an aside, I think there are eight forms of keigo; most Japanese language learners are taught three.] When Japanese is taken as a foreign language, students are taught the most common level of polite speech (humble form). Kashihara-san spoke to Ren with a level of formality that Ren was not familiar with (and furthermore he was a dick about it, speaking "down" to Ren, his usage indicating that Ren was beneath him [notice he does not call Ren "Amamiya-san," which is actually very rude]. Nearly all Japanese speak "up", which indicates that the addressee is more deserving of respect than the speaker), which is why he thought to speak about it to Goro, who speaks formally often._  
>  _


	16. Shinya (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shinya eases some tension at the arcade and overhears something he shouldn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Casual racism, casual sexism, corruption of a minor (non-sexual), jealousy
> 
> *******************
> 
> If you've been reading the comments, you know that I wrote this story a long time ago, and am uploading it as-is. The _Book One_ part of this title should also tell you that C'est la Vie 5 is a long series. Think of this as an anime, dear readers, and know that this is merely the first season. 
> 
> As I upload and double check for formatting and grammatical errors, I do end up finding several old plot lines that I know don't get resolved, or that I'd intended to develop (through seeded clues) and never did; and I'm highly considering also writing a "missing moments" companion for this series. I'm loathe to ruin the pacing I've already created in the story, especially one that has a rigid format like this, but there truly were things I'd meant to develop and just ran out of time for.

**雨宮信也** **Amamiya Shinya**

Adjusting to life in Yongen-Jaya had not been difficult.

It wasn’t  _ quite _ as nice as Kichijoji, but Ren did alright, Shinya supposed. He didn’t live in a house, and he didn’t have air conditioning, but the apartment was large and had an upstairs and  _ two _ bathrooms. And Yongen-Jaya was closer to his favorite arcades, which made it okay as far as Shinya was concerned.

His routine in Yongen-Jaya wasn’t much different than in Kichijoji. Get up, go to school, go to the arcade, go home. Lately, Shinya had started to prefer going to Crown in Azaba-Juuban. If he went to Akihabara, Hikari always managed to descend on him and bug the shit out of him about his sister.

He had nothing new to tell her. He wished he did. 

Futaba just needed time.

That was all he or Ren or Ryuuji could do -- give her time. Shinya didn’t know why that was so fucking difficult to understand. Even Tousan could do it, and Tousan had always been impatient as shit. But Ren hadn’t lived at home with them for many years, and he and Shinya were both learning that he was not as familiar with them as they’d both thought he still was.

It was both funny and uncomfortable at the same time. 

It would be really uncomfortable when Futaba started getting better.

The familiar wave of delicious cold air rolled out into the street as the automatic doors opened to let Shinya into Crown Karaoke and Games. It was crowded with other kids this time of day, from elementary schoolers to university students, all just getting out of school like him. Many crowded around the snack bar or the row of ¥1 game cabinets, killing time until the next karaoke room opened. A large group of kids were gathered around the new dancing game, Happi Dansu Taimu, aka "Hadata", watching a middle schooler  _ destroy _ a high schooler.

Hadata had taken place of honor at the front of the arcade, pushing Demi Bout out and to the back with the other shooter games. This suited Shinya just fine, because fewer kids wandered back there, and he could devote his time to honing his skills. When Futaba was better, he was going to go back to Akihabara and slaughter all the pathetic so-called high scores the regulars had painstakingly earned in his absence. 

He played alone for a while, easily beating the high score that had attempted to displace him between now and when he’d left yesterday. Once he’d memorized the zombies’ likely spawn patterns, it became a matter of  _ where _ to shoot the bodies to maximize points earned with the time limit. Headshots were worth the most, and they were Shinya’s specialty.

He’d beaten about eight games with the highest score (some against other kids, some against his own previous high scores) when a hand grabbed the other gun controller and wrenched it out of its plastic holster. Shinya didn’t look over as he fed the game another ¥5.

“Hey.”

Nefuro grunted in response.

The countdown flashed on the split screens and then the zombies came at them. One or two of them at first, weaklings able to be taken out in one shot. Slowly, more and more filled the screen until the strongest (needing four shots) mingled with the weaklings, shuffling towards them. 

Nefuro used his controller to shoot curse words into the side of the in-game shed once he’d cleared the first level, and was rewarded with an immediate zombie swarm at level two.

“Get it, mother _ fuckers _ ,” he snarled, pulling the plastic trigger furiously.

“Bad day?” Shinya asked mildly.

“Fuck this shithole,” Nefuro spat.

“Big mood.”

“I said. Get. It. Mother.  _ Fuckers _ .” Nefuro was no longer talking to Shinya, his attention back on the zombies.

“You get more points if you shoot them in the head.”

“Fuck points.”

“Killin’ for the sake of killin’?”

“Mmhmm.”

Shinya got that. He’d used this game all summer as stress relief, trying to forget that his fathers were dead, that his sister wasn’t herself, that his brother was almost a stranger. Sometimes you just had to viciously murder something in a video game to get that anger out.

Nefuro made it to level thirty-one before he died, overcome by the zombie horde and triggering a game over. Their scores flashed onscreen after a moment and, unsurprisingly, Shinya beaten him at that too..

“Fuck!” Nefuro jammed the controller back in its holster and kicked the game cabinet. “I’m taking my break!” He ripped his apron off and stormed out the back exit. 

Shinya followed, even though it meant going through the employees’ back room. As long as the manager didn’t see him, no one ever cared. He didn’t ever go behind the counter or steal snacks, and Nefuro’s coworkers knew they were friends. 

He found Nefuro sitting on an overturned crate, smoking and flicking his lighter on and off irritably. The little alley was just wide enough that he could stretch his arms out on either side and touch Crown and the cafe next door, and at the end was the dumpster for the strip. Sometimes Shinya saw a calico cat nosing around for scraps but it wasn’t there today.

“What’s crawled up your ass today?” he asked, leaning against the cafe’s wall, facing Nefuro. It was a question he found himself posing to his friend often, given Nefuro’s temper. Sometimes he wondered if it was really any of his business, and he knew in the back of his mind it wasn’t, but Nefuro never told him to fuck off (something Shinya heard him tell his coworkers quite a lot). Maybe it was because Nefuro was around Ren’s age and actually into the same things he was, but Shinya found himself around the man a lot when he was at Crown. He didn’t bullshit Shinya like other adults did, didn’t coddle him, and didn’t treat him like a child. And Nefuro, for his part, seemed to like Shinya hanging around, and talked to him about all sorts of things.

“Fucking Xiaoyou cut my hours,” the man complained, taking a deep pull on his cigarette, “and my rent is due the week after next.” 

Jiang Xiaoyou was Nefuro’s manager. All Shinya  _ really _ knew about her was that she was Chinese and went to university online during office hours. If he listened to Nefuro, Xiaoyou was pure unsaturated evil. She worked everyone too hard, he said, while she played around on her laptop. She slashed hours for everyone and hoarded them for herself. She gave out pointless tasks and difficult tasks and expected them completed in the same amount of time. She had gotten the licenses for the karaoke tracks of some of their popular songs illegally, and on and on it went. Shinya didn’t know if any of it was true but he listened whenever his friend complained.

“Unazuki kept her hours,” Nefuro continued, cigarette bobbing in his mouth as he spoke, “and so did Shiori. She only cut mine. Fucking bitch. She knows I needed the money for my rent.”

“It’s because she’s Chinese,” Shinya said, reaching for the cigarette. “They have problems.” He took a drag, and Nefuro pulled out a new one and lit it and did the same.

“Because she’s Chinese and a woman,” he agreed. “Why is she even here? She should go back to fucking China and then maybe the owner will hire a Japanese.”

“Maybe she fucked him to get the job,” Shinya suggested and Nefuro laughed so hard he choked on his next pull.

“What do you know about fucking?” Nefuro gasped out in between coughs, thumping himself on the chest. 

“More than you.” Shinya took a drag and blew a perfect, cough-free stream of smoke right in his friend’s face. This made Nefuro laugh again, and choke more, and it was several minutes before he was able to speak again, his face red and his eyes watering.

“Man.” Nefuro exhaled a steady stream of clean air and wiped his eyes, chuckling. “At this point, Shinya, you probably do. I need a girlfriend.” He took a pull on his cigarette.

“You could date Xiaoyou－”

“GET. THE. FUCK. AWAY. FROM. ME.”

“It’s just a suggest－”

“FUCK. OFF.”

“She could probably use the fu－”

“MY DICK WILL NEVER GO NEAR THAT BITCH.”

Shinya had to grasp the wall for support, he was laughing so hard, and Nefuro was so pissed off but it was worth it. None of his school friends were this easy to fuck with.

The man chucked a piece of trash at Shinya, and when that didn’t stop the laughter, he ripped off his sneaker and threw that. “Go the fuck home, you piece of shit!”

But that only made Shinya laugh harder, until he’d sunk to the pavement, elbows resting on his knees. He was sweating in the September heat and he pulled at his collar to cool down. He tried to stop the giggles by smoking, and eventually it seemed to work.

His friend was glaring at him.

“Gimme back my fucking shoe,” Nefuro demanded, snatching it from Shinya’s outstretched hand and jamming it back on his foot. He resumed flicking the lighter, face an angry red, and puffed hard on his cigarette. Nobody said anything until they’d both smoked down to the filters. Nefuro pulled out two more, lit them, and passed one to Shinya.

“What’s going on with you, kid?” he asked, grinding the old butts out under his heels.

Shinya scowled. “Fuck you.”

“What?” Nefuro grinned. “You’re a kid to me.”

“Then you’re corrupting a minor,” Shinya retorted, inhaling deeply from his newly acquired cancer stick to prove it.

“I do that every day,” his friend said dismissively. “I work at a fucking karaoke parlor.” He too greedily sucked in his nicotine.

Shinya raised an eyebrow. “You give out cigs to all the kids?” he asked skeptically, and Nefuro huffed.

“Nah, just you.”

“Oh good. I was gonna tell you, that’s why you’re broke.”

A loud laugh erupted from deep inside his friend, dark and forced. “I’m broke because I drink too much and break shit.”

“Sounds fun.”

“Not when you’re paying for it.” Nefuro ran a hand through Shinya's messy hair. “Asshole. I asked you a question. Let me care about you and shit. Something something I’m your senpai or whatever?”

“Please, I’m better at Demi Bout than you. If anything, I’m the senpai.” Shinya rolled his eyes. “Things still suck. Better, but they suck. My sister’s still messed up. My brother’s still a nutcase. His boyfriend is still irritating. And my dads are still dead.” He ticked them one by one off his fingers.

Nefuro stretched out a long leg and kicked at him across the alley. “What about school?”

“Sucks.”

Nefuro rolled his eyes. “Man, you’re really going all out here. Your day’s going as well as mine is. You need a drink.”

“You offerin’?”

“Not today, friend,” Nefuro sighed. “Extenuating circumstances.”

Shinya snorted. “Like what? You drank it all?”

“I wish. Nah, my little sister’s staying the weekend.” He ashed his cigarette and took a long drag, blowing smoke up high in the air. “If I give her back to my dad and stepmom and she tells them we were drinking, I won’t get to see her again. Stepmom is real uptight.” 

Shinya didn't have an opinion on stepmoms, but he had lots of opinions on being able to drink. He thought that his dad's forbidding it made them uptight too.

“Didn’t know you had a sister,” Shinya remarked, his eyes crossing a little as he focused on the long line of ash at the end of his cigarette. He liked to see how far it could go before it collapsed under its own weight. “She an asshole like you?”

Nefuro chuckled. “Nah, she’s a good kid.”

“Better stay away from her then.”

“Better keep her away from you, you mean.”

“I was a good kid before I met you," Shinya grumbled.

Nefuro grinned. “You were a punk. Still are.” 

Shinya opened his mouth to retort when Crown’s back door opened, and the pretty face of Furuhata Unazuki peeked out.

“Akai! Are you out here?”

At seeing her target, and with him Shinya, Unazuki’s perfectly groomed eyebrows shot up and then dropped sharply into a deep frown.

“Fuck off,” Nefuro muttered, ashing his cigarette and putting it right back between his lips. “I’m on my break.”

Unazuki stepped all the way out into the alley, arms crossed. Shinya liked Unazuki. She was a  _ real _ woman, with a good figure on display in short skirts and tight tops, her full lips accented by lip gloss in various shades of pink. He’d always thought she belonged on the cover of magazines.

She glared at the both of them. “Get up, asshole,” she snapped at Nefuro. “And stop giving cigs to the kid.” She held her hand palm out to Shinya. “You. Hand it over.”

Shinya hesitated, looking from her to Nefuro and back.

“Fuck off, woman!” his friend yelped. “He’s his own man! He can do what he wants.”

Unazuki rolled her eyes. “He’s in middle school, Akai. He doesn’t need to be smoking.”

“I’ll be in high school next year,” Shinya protested. But he handed over his cigarette (after taking one last deep pull). Only because it was Unazuki asking. She threw it down onto the pavement and ground it under her heel.

Nefuro stared at him and mouth the word  _ Pussy. _ Shinya felt his cheeks burn.

“Hey!” Unazuki was snapping her fingers at them and gesturing back towards Crown. “In,” she ordered.

“Who died and made you boss?”

“Your best friend.” The smirk on her face could almost be called malicious; it stirred something in Shinya's chest, all the way down to his crotch.

Nefuro groaned and hauled himself off the overturned crate, glaring at his coworker’s grinning face. “Sometimes I really hate you,” he muttered.

“Mmhmm. Get in.” With Nefuro taken care of, Unazuki turned her attention to Shinya. “You too. You’re not supposed to be out here with this idiot.”

Shinya scrambled to his feet and followed his friend back into the air conditioning (Nefuro was complaining, “You’re the idiot, Furuhata.”), extremely aware of the pretty girl very close at his back.

* * *

It was after dinner when Shinya entered the apartment.

“I’m home,” he announced, bracing for the inevitable scolding from Parent Ren, who expected them all to eat together as a family. As he kicked off his shoes, he noticed that Ryuuji’s were missing, and an unfamiliar pair of brown oxfords sat in their place.

Shinya shrugged his schoolbag more securely onto his shoulder and trudged to the kitchen, stomach growling. Crown fries and juice had been a decent snack a few hours ago but he needed real food. Maybe his brother hadn’t put away the leftovers yet.

He found Ren sitting at the kitchen table with a well dressed man Shinya didn’t know. Probably a friend. He was listening intently to Ren and writing in a small notebook. His handwriting was very small and neat. 

“Tadaima,” Shinya repeated, causing both men to quiet immediately and look up.

“Shinya! Okaeri,” Ren said, brow furrowed.

“Welcome home,” his friend echoed.

“This is my brother Shinya,” Ren told his friend. To Shinya, he said, “This is my colleague, Akechi Goro. He was here once before, when you and Futaba first moved in… I don’t think you remember him.” His ears grew red, but Shinya didn’t know why. He also did not remember meeting this person. He'd purged most of the first few weeks in Yongen-Jaya from his mind. It had been hard, emotionally. He didn't want to think about it. 

He inclined his head in a small bow in greeting (“Yoroshiku,” Akechi chirped) and ignored Ren’s frown, knowing Ren didn’t think it was polite enough. 

“Is there any dinner left?” Might as well get straight to the point.

“On the stove. You can serve yourself since you’re home late.” 

Shinya ignored the annoyance in his brother’s voice and made himself a plate of what turned out to be curry. As he scooped fluffy white rice, he said, “Does that rule apply to Ryuuji too? He isn’t here either.”

“Ryuuji was here,” Ren said shortly. “He left.”

Shinya made a stop by the refrigerator for a bottle of juice before settling at the table. “Why’d he leave?”

This time it was Akechi who spoke, smiling pleasantly. “Sakamoto-san doesn’t much like me, I’m afraid.” Ren did not deny it, looking away uncomfortably.

Interesting.

Shinya filed this information away for later.

“What are you doing here, Akechi-san?” he asked, shoveling curry in his mouth. He really was starving.

“Oh, Ren needed my assistance with a call he’d gotten at work today,” Akechi answered mildly, his tone polite. He gestured towards Shinya’s plate. “Your brother is a very good cook. I was very pleased with the food.”

Ren waved the comment off. He had never been comfortable receiving praise. “We can keep going,” he told Akechi. Shinya saw Ren indicate him and then shake his head and took that to mean that whatever they were talking about, Ren didn’t think it mattered if he were here or not. 

Whatever.

He skimmed some of the notes Akechi had taken as his brother started speaking again. Akechi’s handwriting was so sharp and clear that Shinya had no trouble reading it upside down, even across the table. There was something about _Fushima Shrine_ , and _Kashihara Nobutoshi_ , and _inheritance_. Shinya knew Ren was working on some sort of murder case, which would normally be of great interest, except Ren was just as talkative about work as he was about the other aspects of his life. When he was younger, he'd thought having a cop for a brother would be really cool. He'd thought a lot of things when he was younger. As he grew older, each one disappointed him more than the last.

Clearly this Kashihara guy had been murdered at Fushima Shrine for his inheritance. Or something. Shinya had stopped reading as Ren started talking to his friend, distracted by his brother’s butchering of extremely formal keigo. They had the same papa and Ren couldn’t speak the more formal variety of keigo? Had he forgotten Papa so quickly? 

“Ren.”

Ren stopped mid-sentence. “Yes?”

“What the fuck are you trying to say?”

Ren blinked. “What?”

Shinya rolled his eyes. “You hang out with Ryuuji too much,” he muttered. “Can’t even speak your own damn language.”

“Shinya...” The tone held a warning that Shinya, as always, ignored. 

Akechi, for his part, looked extremely interested in his pen and not at all in the spat between brothers.

“What are you even doing?” Shinya asked. “You get a call from the Emperor or some shit?”

“Shinya, stop cursing in front of company,” Ren snapped.

“Ren received a call from someone who spoke formal keigo,” Akechi explained.

“Any idiot can speak keigo,” Shinya deadpanned. “It’s called being polite.”

“No. Not that. He spoke way more formally,” Ren clarified.

Shinya sighed. Sometimes he felt like he was the only fucking person who did anything in this house. “What do you  _ think _ he said? What were you just trying to say, just now? I can’t listen to this garbage while I’m trying to eat.”

Ren’s eyebrows shot up so far they disappeared under his bangs. “Uh. Okay.” He looked at Akechi, who shrugged as if to say  _ well, why not? _ and looked back at his brother. “He said something about… having nothing. There’s nothing.” Ren frowned, trying to remember. “Um. Something about… making up names.”

In plain Japanese, Ren had said  _ Nani mo aru da. Namae tsukuriageda. _ The polite form he would use to most anyone in Japan was  _ Nani mo arimasen. Namae o tsukuriageta. _ Neither of these were what Ren had been attempting to say to Akechi. Ren had been attempting to use a type of keigo － polite language － used by the haughty elite, sonkeigo. 

“Nani mo ogozarininarimasen,” Shinya said easily. “Onamae wo otsukurininarimasu.”

Relief flooded his brother's face, recognition in his eyes. “Shinya, you’re brilliant! Where’d you learn to talk like that?”

Shinya snorted. “Papa, dumbass. Papa talked like that.” He paused to shovel a too big spoonful of curry into his mouth, the vulgarity clashing with the beauty of sonkeigo. “Not often, but enough. You didn’t listen.”

He watched Ren’s face fall at his words and squashed down a wave of guilt. Ren had been the test baby, he knew. Adopting him in the first place had been difficult. He and Futaba had been easy. They’d had each other, they’d had Tousan and Papa almost to themselves, and they’d had a pretty, pampered childhood. He knew that Ren came much earlier, when Papa and Tousan worked and worked, and Ren spent more time with the Mishimas than he did at home. Shinya tried to suffocate his feelings in curry.

“Tell me you recorded the call,” he piped up after several minutes. 

Akechi brightened. “That would be extremely helpful indeed, Ren.”

“ _ Futaba _ is your sister. Tell me you recorded the damn call.” Shinya took his empty plate to the sink and turned on the water. He felt bad about his earlier comment about their papa and decided to wash the dishes in apology. Ren’s sigh could be heard over the running of the water.

“No, I didn’t. I don’t bug my own phone,” Ren muttered, massaging his temples.

“Why the hell not?” Futaba exclaimed, when Shinya told her half an hour later. “It’s fucking useful. Friggin’ idiot.” She began typing away madly at her computer.

“What are you doing?” Shinya asked, peering over her shoulder.

“Hacking the phone company,” his sister mumbled, distracted. “ _ They’ll _ have a recording.” She adjusted her glasses, the half eaten plate of curry forgotten in her pursuit of information, and Shinya couldn’t help but feel a swell of excitement. It was like seeing the old Futaba again.

As he did every day, Shinya brought his sister dinner when he tired of their brother’s company. He was still the only one allowed she allowed to intrude in her space, but she was  _ interested _ . Futaba had started to grow restless in her room, and had begun digging out the creepy spy network she’d rigged at their house in Kichijoji. (Shinya knew she still had a camera or two at the house; he’d seen her looking at live footage from it.) She must have installed it when everyone was out, because when he walked in, the kitchen was displayed on her second computer monitor. Without looking at Shinya, she pointed to Akechi and said, “Who is that?” 

Shinya told her everything he had been told, and with very little prompting, his sister had positively  _ leapt _ at the opportunity to sink her digital teeth into new, unexplored territory: Ren’s phone records. Little by little she’d been opening up － they’d watched all of  _ Fujimine _ (which Shinya grudgingly admitted wasn’t a half bad show), played all of Futaba’s old school, two player games, played most of Shinya’s newer, two player games, and pirated several movies. Futaba had hesitantly begun asking about school. But this… 

This was Big with a capital B.

Shinya had watched his sister go through many a depressed episode, many an overstimulation. He had never seen one this bad. There were many moments he was at such a loss he nearly went to Ren to confess that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, and Futaba was  _ not _ okay, and someone had to do something. There were several times he was sure Futaba would live the rest of her life in this damn room. Seeing the person she was resurface like this was… magical. He laid out on her bed and got comfy. He didn’t really have much to do except surf the internet on his phone, but he was not about to miss Futaba being  _ Futaba _ after months of her being a ghost.

He became aware of more than the sound of keys clacking and the mouse clicking after a while. He’d zoned out playing the Royal Hearts mobile game. He clicked the home button on his phone and saw that it had actually been almost an hour and a half since he’d come into Futaba’s room. His sister was still clacking away at her keyboard － he didn’t know if she’d gotten Ren’s recording yet. Hacking wasn’t a specialty of his.

He glanced at her secondary monitor. Futaba had cameras set up in four locations: just outside the front door, the kitchen, the living room, and the upstairs hallway. The noise he’d heard sounded like arguing. The hallway outside of the front door was empty, as was the kitchen. The upstairs hallway was empty as well, his door wide open, Futaba’s and their brother’s shut tight. Their brother and Ryuuji were in the living room, and while Futaba’s cameras didn’t have sound (she did own microphones, but it seemed she hadn’t rigged them yet), it was clear that the noise came from them. Ryuuji must have just gotten home － his shoes were off but his keys were still in his hand and his gym bag still slung over his shoulder.

“Hey,” he called to his sister. “What are those two on about?”

“Shhh. Busy.”

Well. Perhaps that was a good thing. 

Shinya slid off Futaba’s bed and padded over to her door, cracking it the tiniest bit to press his ear to the space.

“－just don’t see why you gotta bring him over,” Ryuuji was grumbling.

“We’re friends. We’ve  _ been _ friends. Ryuuji, we’ve been over this.” That was Ren. It sounded like he was losing patience.

“I’ve seen how he looks at you, Ren! I don’t like it!” 

“You don’t even know if he’s interested in men－”

“I know he’s interested in  _ you _ !” Ryuuji snapped. “He has been, since before I ever came into the picture. You know he doesn’t like me－”

“He likes you just fine!”

“He’d like if we broke up.”

Ren groaned. Shinya imagined him, glasses off, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. It was something he and Futaba did too.

“How long are you working on this project with him?” Ryuuji’s voice was a little less angry, an attempt to be apologetic, but he was still obviously pissed.

“I work  _ with him _ , Ryu-Ryu. That’s kind of how we met.” 

There was a soft  _ thump _ , and Shinya realized with a start that  _ Ren _ had hit the couch cushion. Ren never hit anything. He didn’t know Ren could get that angry. 

“ _ Don’t. _ ” His brother’s voice was iron, hard and fast, and Shinya looked over his shoulder at the monitor. Ryuuji was facing away from Ren now, looked like he’d been trying to leave.

“That’s not how this works, Ryuuji. You can be pissed － that’s fine. But you don’t get to leave again. We’re both angry.”

Shinya watched the monitor (around Futaba’s head) as his brother stepped up to Ryuuji and placed a hand on his shoulder. Ryuuji didn’t react.

“We’ll go calm down and try again,” his brother said. His voice dropped too low for Shinya to hear. Ryuuji said something back, also too low to hear. His brother responded, and Ryuuji shrugged his hand off and turned towards the stairs.

“Well I’m pretty fucking mad!” 

“Then it’s gonna be a long night,” Ren called after him, sitting down heavily on the couch. 

Shinya turned around and saw through the crack that Ryuuji had stormed upstairs. He threw open the door to his and Ren’s room and stalked in. Shinya expected to hear the door slam, braced for it, braced for it to jolt Futaba out of her old self and back into her depression － but it never came. Ryuuji shut the door quietly and Shinya heard nothing more. He closed Futaba’s door.

“Did you hear them?” he asked her. “Ryuuji thinks Akechi is after Ren.”

_ Clack. Clack. Clack. _

“Ren could do better than meathead, that’s for sure.” 

Silence.

“...Futaba?”

“ _ Busy. _ ”

“Futaba, seriously.”

“Shhhh.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S NOTES**  
>  Okay. I've decided to save "this character comes from/is based on" moments for a glossary chapter at the end, unless it impacts readers' understanding of the story in some way. Akai Nefuro is 100% Nephrite from Sailor Moon, but you all need to understand something: He is from the live action series, not the anime or the manga. Live action Nephrite was so different from every other incarnation and I fell in love with him and needed him to have better than the seeded bits of happiness he had in the series. Which... happens eventually here. Just not in this chapter lol. If you have not seen the live action, then first of all: How dare you. And second, minus the corruption of Shinya, Nephrite is basically exactly the same as in here. 
> 
> Japan (and many Asian countries) don't look kindly on foreigners. While it's hard to know exactly how many people of non-Japanese descent live in Japan (due to the fact that, officially, a citizen's nationality and heritage are the same), there are many naturalized and second/third generation citizens of foreign descent living in Japan. The most common non-Japanese ancestry is Chinese, followed by Korean and Ryukyuan. 
> 
> Tadaima means "I'm home." The proper response is Okaeri(masu), which is simply "Welcome home." When Goro is introduced to Shinya, he says Yoroshiku, which means "Nice to meet you."
> 
> Reminder that when Ren spoke to Kashihara on the phone, the other man spoke extremely formally. The reason learners of Japanese are only taught three levels of politeness is because, for the most part, the average Japanese person does not actually need to know any more than that. An example is to the verb "to use." A polite, close way to say "use this" is "Tsukau." Someone like Kashihara-san would say "o tsukai ni natte itadakimasen deshou ka." Ren saying "tsukau" as a complete sentence and Kashihara-san saying that jumbled mess are literally saying exactly the same thing, but Kashihara's would be translated more like "I humbly ask that you consider using this." Jun, as Kashihara's son and raised in the same manner, also spoke very formally, but not quite as badly as that. He probably would have settled for "o tsukai kudasaimase."
> 
> Shinya obviously doesn't repeat exactly what Ren heard on his phone call, but it's close to what Ren remembers he heard.
> 
> Yes, Futaba bugged her own house just like P5 Futaba bugged Le Blanc.


	17. Yuuki (Part 2)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuki and Ren both feel a little insecure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: emotional constipation, past one-sided Yuuki/Shiho, mild background homophobia, inadequacy issues, Ren is a dick
> 
> ****************
> 
> I need to be working on my other fics... but I'm deep in video games atm and Persona is calling my name. ^_^;;

**三島由輝** **Mishima Yuuki**

“It just pisses me off.”

“That’s not a reason, Yuuki-kun. _Why_ does this bother you so much?”

Silence.

“Ryuuji is the reason you made this appointment, is he not?”

The air hung heavy with all of what he could not bring himself to say.

Sonomura-hakase leaned back in her chair and sighed. It wasn’t so much an impatient sigh as it was a disappointed one. “I can only help you as much as you help me, Yuuki-kun,” she said gently.

Yuuki picked at a non-existent loose thread on his shirt. “Yes,” he mumbled. 

“Yes to what?” his therapist asked patiently. She had kind eyes and a gentle demeanor. Yuuki understood why she’d chosen this sort of non-traditional therapy, in addition to doling out medication. Talking… helped. He had always spoken with Ren about his problems. Ren, his calm, composed best friend, who had more than once sat him down and would not let him leave until he'd at least admitted there _was_ a problem. Or Tatsuya and Jun. More than once － his entire life, really － he had found himself at the Amamiya house, shaking with rage or fear or anguish, two men who were not his own father gently prodding and soothing until he could say something, anything.

When they were alive, Yuuki had always been able to find Jun in the kitchen, scrubbing stubbornly with narrowed eyes at a spot on the counter only he could see. (They had all teased him for this mystery spot, a remnant of wine spilled long ago. Jun would make tea and bade Yuuki sit down at the scrubbed wooden table, waiting patiently in comfortable silence while Yuuki made anxious small talk, hands wrapped around the blue mug he'd long claimed as his own. He would listen as Yuuki cried wordlessly about not being good enough, his anxieties about the uncertainty of his life, his parents' fighting, and offer a word of advice or two in his soft timbre, an anecdote about his own childhood. 

Tatsuya would put him to work, and together they would vent Yuuki's frustrations about girls and exams and bullies on Tatsuya's motorcycle, or one of the many cars in his garage. He would listen as Tatsuya mumbled to himself about this or that, his brow furrowed as he tried to work off a particularly stubborn lug nut. Tatsuya believed in occupying the mind to ease anxiety, or else you would never be calm enough to actually deal with it. 

And Ren... Well. Ren was the best of both of them. Whereas Shinya was too much like Jun, with his scathing wit and pushing boundaries, and Futaba leaned too far towards Tatsuya, surrounded by her obsessions and propensity to cause mischief, Ren had always been a perfect fifty-fifty split. He had Jun's sharp eyes and Tatsuya's easy manner, believed in settling conflict quickly rather than allowing it to fester. He was, without a doubt, the person Yuuki trusted most in the world. He could tell Ren anything.

But now Tatsuya and Jun were dead, and it was selfish to burden Ren with his problems, and Yuuki couldn't talk to anyone anymore, not really. 

“Yes,” he said again, finally, “I made this appointment because of Ryuuji.” 

If he were absolutely honest with himself, Ryuuji was the only subject he could not discuss with Ren.

Sonomura-hakase smiled, a reward for acknowledging what they both already knew. Speaking to patients, who already didn’t believe in the sort of medicine she practiced － this “talk therapy” she studied in America － was like pulling teeth, and she could easily be patronizing in her praise. Yuuki never felt patronized. He had never been one to talk about how he _felt,_ how things affected him. Probably a habit he’d picked up from Ren. Doing so with Sonomura-hakase, his secrets contained in her office, lifted a weight from his shoulders. 

“Go on, Yuuki.”

Yuuki huffed and sat up straighter in his seat. He glanced at the clock. In America, Sonomura-hakase said, patients were given an entire hour. When he’d first started this talking thing, he’d thought an entire hour with a doctor was far too long. Now he didn’t believe it was long enough. 

“It’s like he… overshadows me,” Yuuki told her. It was difficult, articulating his thoughts. Spelling out how the world made him _feel._ He wasn't supposed to feel. That's what his father had always told him. 

“With your friends?”

“With everyone." He bit his lip. "I went to university with Shiho, and I _never knew_ about the roof, hakase.” Yuuki’s fists clenched in his lap. “I never knew, and she was my friend first, but she told _him_.”

“Is this about Shiho, Yuuki?” his hakase asked gently. “We’ve talked about her…” 

Yuuki shook his head. “No… I know. It’s about… I just feel like…” 

Not knowing the right words pissed him off. Sonomura-hakase never took notes during his appointments, but he felt like he was being graded anyway. She was another person he needed to impress. 

“It’s like he’s taken over my life,” he blurted finally. “My best friends. My job. My hobbies.”

Hakase looked at him thoughtfully. “You brought him into your life though, Yuuki. You introduced him to Ren and Shiho.” She tapped her forefinger against her chin. “You told me you set Ren up with him.”

Whether hakase agreed with his best friend’s lifestyle or not, Yuuki did not know, but if she didn’t, she didn’t let it interfere with her counseling of him. Yuuki had told her in their very first appointment about Ren and Ryuuji, his feelings about them, his adequacy issues towards Ryuuji, and her face had never let anything slip. He appreciated it. He appreciated her professionalism. He knew, had heard horror stories from Ren and Tatsuya and Jun, that not everyone was as unbiased.

“It was the way Ren looked at him,” Yuuki protested. “His whole face lit up." He still remembered the look, the clouds parting and his best friend shining like the goddamn sun as Ryuuji had joined them, balancing a case of water on each shoulder for his track kids. "I hadn’t seen him look at anyone like that in a long time, hakase. Not since he was in the police academy and dating Yoshihide-kun.”

“So you introduced them to make Ren happy?”

“Well yeah!" he sputtered. "Ren has been my best friend since we were babies. I would do anything for him.”

“Have you told him how you feel?" Sonomura-hakase asked gently. "About Ryuuji?”

Yuuki was taken aback. “Never,” he said firmly. 

“And why is that?”

“It would hurt him.” Yuuki picked at his nails. “I know… I know it’s all… irrational. I know Ryuuji’s a good guy. I just…”

Sonomura-hakase nodded along as Yuuki spoke. “You just feel you don’t belong,” she supplied. 

“Yeah…”

“Which is what we’ve been working on,” she reminded him, her vbice soft and non-threatening.

He nodded and she smiled at him kindly.

“Everyone feels like that sometimes,” hakase told him. “Even me. I visited a friend’s home over the weekend, and it was just… Oh, it was not good.” She gave a small laugh, her cheeks burning pink. 

“My friend was not in a good place,” she continued. “His youngest son is ill, and his oldest is in trouble for fighting in school. I’ve known those boys their entire lives. I helped raise them. But watching my friend discipline his oldest, I felt like _I_ didn’t belong.” She tucked a piece of her short hair behind her ear. “I’ve disciplined that boy countless times, but watching my friend do it was different. More intimate. No matter how much I can act in place of their mother, I’m not their real mother, and they won’t respect me like they do their father.”

Sonomura-hakase leaned a bit closer towards Yuuki, her eyes bright. “But even though this weekend I had that moment of not belonging, that did not mean I was inadequate. My worth as a person is not defined by what other people think of me, and neither is yours, Yuuki,” she advised. “My worth as a person is defined by what I think of myself, and yours by yourself.”

Yuuki nodded, but at the moment he didn’t think much of himself. He wasn’t muscular or attractive like Ryuuji, strong like Shiho or unflappable like Ren. He wasn’t a great catch either － he was the only one out of all of his friends not in a relationship, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. He didn't think any woman would want to put up with his neuroticism, and even if they did, the typhoon that was his parents would chase them away. He didn't even have his surrogate fathers as points in his favor anymore.

“What I want you to do, Yuuki, before we see each other again,” his hakase was saying, “is make me a list of all the ways you have worth as a person. We can discuss it when you come back, okay?”

Yuuki nodded. 

Not only was he getting graded at therapy, but he had homework now too. 

He wondered if he was doing well.

He picked at his nails.

Only now did Sonomura-hakase pull out a pen to write with, but it was for her date book. She flipped through the pages quietly before settling on one, the large stretch of October staring them both in the face.

“Let’s set you up for next month.”

* * *

“How’s Fuu-chan?” Yuuki asked, reclining on Ren’s couch. Ren shoved his feet off and sat down with him. “She still a cryptid?”

“Getting less mysterious every day,” his friend replied. “She’s been texting me. Won’t come out of her room still, but at least she’s talking.”

Yuuki grinned and clapped Ren on the shoulder. “That’s really good, Ren! Really, really good.”

“Mmhmm.” Ren didn’t look convinced. His expression hadn’t exactly changed from when Yuuki had shown up at his door to now, but Yuuki had become a master at detecting the subtleties in Ren’s mannerisms over the years. He was tense and stressed. Yuuki could tell from the small hunch to his shoulders, the slight furrow in his brow, the tired look in his eye. He probably wasn't eating enough or sleeping well either.

“What’s wrong?”

Ren was confused. “What?”

Yuuki sat up properly, crossing his legs underneath himself. “Ren,” he said, his voice very no-nonsense. “Are you okay?”

“Of course.” Ren smiled at him as if to prove it, and Yuuki wanted to smack him. Their entire lives, no matter what was said or what occurred, the one constant, unchanging fact was that Ren refused to reveal when he had a problem. No matter how bad it got, Ren bottled everything inside. Yuuki privately thought that Ren would rather die than reveal a single vulnerable emotion.

He smacked him.

“Hey!” Ren yelped, rubbing the back of his head. 

“What’s wrong?” Yuuki asked again, frowning.

“You just hit me, that’s what’s wrong!”

_Gods above, help this man. Tatsuya-san, Jun-san, help your son stop being an idiot._

(The urn containing the bones of Tatsuya and Jun, still unburied, sat silently against the far wall, judging them both. Probably calling both of them idiots.)

“ _Ren_.”

Ren huffed, hand in his unruly hair. Light glared off of his glasses, hiding his eyes, and when he spoke, it was so quiet that Yuuki had to strain to hear.

“Do you think I’m doing okay? With Futaba and Shinya?” He huffed again, put his hand in his lap. “It’s just… I never know where my brother is. He doesn’t really talk to me. Doesn’t listen to me. And Fuu-chan… Yuuki, she’s been in her room for _weeks_. I should be doing something, shouldn’t I? I… It’s like I don’t know them anymore.”

“You’re doing great, Ren,” Yuuki soothed. “Really. You _know_ how Futaba is. And Shinya…” Yuuki huffed and sat back. “Sheesh, Shinya’s… He’s a piece of work. Not gonna lie, I’m not looking forward to him in high school next year. I kind of hope he doesn’t get into Kaibara." He grinned. "But he’s always been a shit, you know that.” 

Ren looked over at him, dejected, and Yuuki pushed on. “Come on. How many times did Shinya get grounded when we were kids?” he asked. “How many times did your papa say that Shinya was just like him as a kid and that _he_ was a little shit growing up? At least you know he can take care of himself, if anything happens.”

“I just don’t want someone calling me at work and telling me to come downstairs and get my kid brother,” Ren admitted.

“Shinya’s not that bad,” Yuuki scoffed. “That’s just you being a pessimist.”

“Mm.” 

“And hey. Their grades are good, right? Futaba’s been submitting all her work electronically, Kusaka says, and it’s all correct,” he continued. “And Shinya’s not bringing home any bad test scores, is he? That’s pretty good. Who else can say their grades were still good after their parents passed?”

His friend sighed. “I guess.”

“You’re fine,” Yuuki assured him. “Was that really what’s bothering you?”

Sometimes getting Ren to talk was like pulling teeth, wrenching each word out with every ounce of strength, and Yuuki had learned in those instances it was better to leave him be and let him stew in it. But every so often, Ren wanted to _talk_ . These occasions were rare, and Yuuki didn’t think Ren _talked_ to anyone but him. Only because they’d shared their entire lives together. He knew that he felt safe around Ren, could tell Ren anything, even the most stupid, most embarrassing details of his life, because of this connection, and if there was anything in the world he was sure about, it was that Ren felt the same way. Yuuki didn’t think Ren even talked to Ryuuji the way he talked to him.

“Goro-kun came over the other day,” Ren admitted. “Ryuuji wasn’t happy.”

Yuuki knew all about Ryuuji’s insecurity over the close friendship between Ren and Akechi-san. He relished in the thought that even someone as confident as Ryuuji had anxieties of his own. 

“We had an argument,” Ren continued, “and didn’t go to bed until late. The next day was pretty awful.” Ren didn’t believe in going to bed angry － he and Yuuki had had many fights as children, and many late nights working them out, hiding under the covers so Ren’s dads wouldn’t hear them whispering.

“I seem to remember getting a text composed of nonsense.”

Ren’s ears flushed pink. “Sorry.”

Yuuki grinned. “It’s okay, man,” he said, waving the apology away. “Ryuuji will have to get over that eventually, you know.”

“I know. That’s not what’s… Well, it _bothers_ me, but it’s not what’s _bothering_ me. If that makes sense.”

“Nothing about you makes sense, Amamiya, but go on.”

Ren rolled his eyes, a shadow of amusement crossing his face before fading. 

“I invited Goro-kun over to help me with something,” he continued. “I’d gotten a phone call that day at work. From someone named Kashihara Nobutoshi. He was really pissed off at me.”

“Kashihara?”

“Nobutoshi,” Ren confirmed, nodding. “I’ve been calling shrines for burial prices, and one was Fushima. Apparently, the Kashiharas have a crypt there.”

Kashihara Nobutoshi… Why was that name so familiar?

“And this guy － he was older, he said _wagahai_ , Yuuki. _Waga_ -fucking- _hai_ － he told me I couldn’t bury my dads there. Said he was insulted that I'd try."

Yuuki raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"He said that Tousan took my papa away and Papa wasn’t a Kashihara anymore. Called him a lot of terrible names. Called me a few names too.” Ren’s mouth settled in a grim line. “Told me he’d disowned Papa thirty years ago, considered Papa dead when he disowned him…”

The realization smacked him in the face.

“Holy shit.”

“Yeah. So… I met my grandfather, I guess.” Ren ran a shaky hand through his hair; this was probably the first time he’d said this to anyone. “Great guy.”

“Ren, holy shit.” Where was his phone? He had to check...

“I know.”

“No, Ren, holy _shit._ ” Yuuki searched Kashihara Nobutoshi while Ren spoke, the name bothering him like a dream barely remembered. The results were astounding. “He’s the CEO of Kashihara Group.”

“...Okay?” His friend's face suggested that this information meant little and less to him.

“Ren, they’re one of the top ten wealthiest companies in Japan!” Yuuki exclaimed. “They own KSG Electro. You know, _the most common manufacturer of computer parts_? Shit, no wonder he called you…” The name was mentioned in nearly every article in Yuuki's computer magazines.

Ren stared at him, mind blown. Yuuki skimmed the search results.

>> _Kashihara Group acquires MST Space Technologies…_

>> _Daughter of Kashihara CEO named heir of Kashihara Group…_

>> _Biography of Kashihara Nobutoshi does well despite controversy…_

>> _Kashihara CEO declines comment over son’s death._

He mashed his thumb against the hyperlink. The article was dated August 1 of this year.

> _...Amamiya Jun was pronounced dead at the scene of a car accident on July 27. He is_
> 
> _survived by his three children, parents, sister, and brother-in-law. His father, Kashihara_
> 
> _Group CEO Kashihara Nobutoshi, refused comment._

It went on to discuss briefly that Jun had been disowned several decades ago, without naming why, and that the two men had had no contact in the years following. His sister, following her marriage, had been proclaimed the Kashihara Group’s heir; she too had no contact with her brother. Jun’s life after his disownment was not mentioned. 

The author of the article was Sakamoto Ichiko.

“That’s Ryuuji’s sister,” Ren said, pointing to the byline. He had shuffled over, reading over Yuuki's shoulder.

“Ryuuji has a sister?”

Ren nodded, eyes on the screen. “Yeah. She’s… interesting.” He looked at the small article again. “I wonder if she knows anything else.”

“You could call her.” A thought struck Yuuki and he turned to his friend excitedly. “You know who else you could ask? Ogata-san! Hasn’t she known your tousan for forever?”

“I didn’t even think of her. She’s been around since before I was adopted,” Ren murmured, frowning. Ogata was the head mechanic of Aporo Garage now that Tatsuya had passed. She was a tall, intimidating woman who dressed and spoke like a man, and her wife had been Yuuki’s first ever crush. (He still had a crush on Katsuki-san, honestly. She was gorgeous.)

Ren gave him a large genuine smile and placed his hand on Yuuki’s shoulder. “Thank you, Yuuki,” he said, his voice soft and full of more emotion than Yuuki had ever heard. “Really. You really helped.”

Yuuki grinned. “That’s what I do, friend. It’s not what I came here for, but hey, glad to be of service.”

Ren laughed. “What did you come here for?”

Ryuuji flashed through Yuuki’s mind. Hakase had asked him if he’d ever told his friend how… inadequate Ryuuji sometimes made him feel, and after steeling his nerves, Yuuki had decided to do that. Because maybe Ren, his best friend, who knew him better than anyone, who knew him _and_ Ryuuji better than anyone, could put him at ease. 

But seeing Ren upset about his siblings, about his argument with his boyfriend, about some weird phone call (where it turned out he was related to a _billionaire!_ )... Yuuki knew trying to talk to him about Ryuuji, today, would upset him further. And Yuuki didn’t want to do that. Not today. He could sort out his issues another day.

“I just wanted to hang out,” Yuuki said, shrugging. He was nothing if not quick on his feet. “It feels like I’ve seen your boyfriend more than you lately.”

“You work with him, Yuuki," Ren deadpanned. "You have seen him more than me.”

Yuuki shoved him and rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean,” he grumbled, causing a laugh to erupt from his friend.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Ren proposed. “I’ve been in the apartment all day.”

“Where to?”

“Leblanc?”

Yuuki grinned. “That place is great. I need a cup of coffee anyway. I’m really tired today.”

“Please. I’m really tired every day.”

* * *

When they were kids, Yuuki and Ren liked to go to Wammy’s, a cafe in Kichijoji. It was a child’s dream, with sweets and sugary drinks, sweet red bean paste and every flavor of Pocky. Wammy’s had been chosen specifically because it was only a seven minute walk from their street, which was an eternity for a child but nothing for an adult, and their parents didn’t worry with them so close.

When Ren and Yuuki moved out, they both ended up in Yongen-Jaya, and not entirely on accident. So it was only natural that they find a replacement Wammy’s. The new Wammy’s had to be something more mature (because after all, they _were_ twenty years old and adults now) and, most importantly, somewhere in between their apartment buildings. It had been Ren who’d found it, simply texting Yuuki an address with an exclamation point seventeen days into their new lives as adults. For Ren, exclamation points were rare occurrences, and Yuuki had nearly broken his neck running down the stairs of his building in his haste to see what had gotten him so flustered.

Cafe Leblanc was a small, cozy shop sandwiched between a secondhand store and a laundromat, across the alley from a grocery and a pharmacy. Its walls were made of dark panelled wood, its booths of soft leather, and the lights were kept a bit dim, unlike the harsh and bright lights at Wammy’s. Leblanc’s menu could not be more different from Wammy’s, as it did not serve sweets, did not serve sodas or juice, did not even serve sakura mochi in spring. Leblanc had a vast selection of coffee beans and a variety of ways to turn them into drinks. And none of the newer, fancy drinks that could be found at Galaxybucks, made more of sugar and milk than of coffee. Leblanc believed that _coffee_ should be the focus of coffee, not the additions. 

(Yuuki, who had once been a Galaxybucks addict, had been converted upon the discovery of Leblanc. He could no longer stand the too sweet flavor of the mass produced coffees, and bought only freshly ground beans.)

Leblanc also served food, but its menu had only one item: curry. It could be served sweet, mild, or spicy, but curry was all Leblanc carried (though occasionally bread could be bought if they came in early enough, but this was off menu and could not be made to order). It was because of Leblanc that Ren and Yuuki learned to make curry, eager to enjoy the spicy-sweet flavor at home, and though their first dozen attempts were disasters, they slowly learned to make an acceptable substitute. (Yuuki’s was better, though Ren would never admit it.) 

Yuuki and Ren had spent many hours here studying, Yuuki for university exams and Ren for academy tests, chatting, or slacking off. Ren had taken Ryuuji here for their first date (and was so horrified at learning Ryuuji didn’t like coffee that Yuuki'd nearly had curry coming out his nose for laughing as his friend wailed over it), Yuuki had held study sessions here with his university friends, and it was here they had conspired many a birthday, anniversary, or surprise gift for their parents or Ren’s siblings or their friends. 

The bell chimed merrily as they walked in, only one other customer in the shop. It was the middle of the day, and not even lunchtime: Leblanc’s downtime. The best time to come in, in Yuuki’s opinion. A girl poked her head out of the kitchen at the sound.

“Welcome to Lebl－ Oh, it’s you guys." She smiled. "Welcome back.”

Ren gave a small wave, Yuuki said, “Hey Aika,” and they slid into their usual booth near the back, with its view of the coffee bar and the open kitchen. 

The waitress, Aika, dried her hands on a towel and strode right into the coffee bar, smoothing her apron. “You want your usual?” she asked. Her bangs, peeking out from beneath the bandana covering her hair, were frizzing － she must have been making a new batch of curry.

“Please,” Ren said.

“And thank you,” Yuuki added.

“How’ve you been, Aika?”

“Pretty good,” the waitress replied. She was pulling climbing a step ladder to reach a jar of beans in the back of the cabinet. “Manager gave me time off next week to visit my hometown. It’s my father’s birthday.”

The men knew that Aika was from a small town outside of Tokyo; she had moved to the city for university. They had gotten to know Aika quite well over the past few years, as she had been a waitress at this cafe before they had started coming here. They knew she wasn’t much older than they were and that she had three brothers. Her father was older and had wanted her to become a doctor with her “fancy Tokyo education.” Aika had just wanted to get away from country life.

“That’s a four hour train ride, right?” Yuuki asked. “What book are you bringing?” Aika loved to read.

“I just bought a new fiction book about a time traveler.” 

They chatted while Aika ground their coffee, things like how their work was going (Aika’s was boring), where they'd eaten for her father's birthday (a popular restaurant), if he was still trying to marry her off to the cabbage seller (he was).

“And you still don’t like cabbage?” Ren teased. Aika swatted him with her hand towel.

“Watch it, Amamiya, or I’ll send you in my place,” she threatened.

“I do look good in drag," he said with a straight face, his mouth curling upwards at the edges.

Aika rolled her eyes and went back into the kitchen to check the curry. Yuuki knew she thought he was joking, and Yuuki knew that Ren absolutely was not.

“You should go out with her,” he said abruptly.

Yuuki choked on his coffee.

“ _What_?”

His friend was staring at him with a devious look on his face. 

“Aika,” Ren clarified, as if he needed it. “You should ask her on a date.”

Yuuki coughed and hastily grabbed at some napkins to mop up the spilled drink. “Um… Why?”

Ren sipped from his own cup, still smiling in a way Yuuki didn’t like. “She’s cute, and you two get along,” he said mildly. “And you never did ask her out when we moved here.”

“That was years ago!” Yuuki protested. “I’m over that stupid crush.”

“You never get over a crush.”

(It wasn't as if Yuuki owned every Katsuki Michiru CD, despite not even liking classical music, or anything. It wasn't like he'd camped out every day in Leblanc as a university student, surviving on ¥1 coffee when he was broke and his pantry only held ramen.) 

“Ren…” Yuuki could feel himself start to flush.

“Two spicy curries, watch your elbows!” Aika announced, storming over like a gust of wind and setting their food in front of them. Like the coffee, they hadn’t technically ordered it, but they were such regulars that they didn’t need to. They walked in and Aika had their coffee and curry ready to go.

“Thanks Aika,” Ren said. “Looks great.”

Yuuki glared at him. Ren looked at him innocently. Yuuki didn't trust it. 

But Aika left without comment, Ren saying nothing more to her. 

“What are you up to?” Yuuki asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” his friend assured him, picking up his spoon. 

As the meal wore on, and Ren only spoke to Aika to ask for a refill of coffee, or to hand her his plate, and told Yuuki about a case he was catching up on at work, Yuuki nearly believed him. Sometimes Ren was just a dick, and said dickish things for shits and giggles. 

They split the bill (because Yuuki refused to pay for Ren’s three coffees when he’d only had one) and as they were getting up to leave, Ren turned to the waitress.

“Aika,” he asked, “do you work tomorrow?” 

Aika looked up from the cash register, shutting the drawer and putting the store receipt in a blue envelope. “I don’t. It’s my day off.”

Ren grinned so widely he could’ve cracked his entire face. Yuuki’s eyes widened.

“Ren…!”

“Yuuki would like to take you to dinner,” Ren said cheerfully, fending off Yuuki’s attempts to clap a hand over his mouth. “Around eight?”

Mother _fucker_.

Aika blinked, and looked from him to Yuuki. A smile broke out. “Sure. We can meet here.” Her eyes twinkled as she dared a look at Yuuki and then addressed Ren. “You can tell Yuuki that it’s cute he had you ask me.”

Ren grinned. “I will. Night, Aika.” And he let Yuuki drag him outside the shop.

Yuuki glared at him. Ren continued to grin.

“You’ve got a date tomorrow,” he said amiably. “You should go somewhere nice, I think. You deserve it.”

“ _Why did you do that?_ ” Yuuki wailed. “ _Why?_ ”

“You helped me earlier,” Ren said simply, “so I decided to help you.”

“I didn’t need help!”

“Oh yes you did.”

 _Motherfucker_.

“...You realize that if this goes badly, we can never come back to Leblanc again, right?”

Ren chuckled and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “I have faith in you, Yuuki. You will do fine.”

Yuuki wanted to die of shame right there. He wanted the ground to open up and swallow him whole. He mostly wanted to hit Ren.

He hit Ren.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Author's Notes**
> 
> Ren's ex-boyfriend is a shout out to the Persona 5 stageplay. Yoshide Sasaki plays Goro. ^_^
> 
> Leblanc serving bread is a personal nod to a small Japanese store I once worked in. Every Wednesday, we got a delivery of Hippo brand bread. If you've never had Japanese bread, let me tell you, it is out of this world. Even just a plain slice from the loaf was heaven. Hippo would sent us the equivalent of a shopping cart full of loaves, an(zu) donuts (fried bread with sweet red bean paste and covered in granulated sugar), choco breads, and an assortment of other breads like creme breads. The store opened at 9:00, the Hippo delivery came in at 10:30, and by noon we would be completely sold out. Hippo, wherever you are, I crave your an donuts so badly I DREAM about them.


	18. Futaba (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Futaba has a breakthrough

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Bad coping mechanisms, breakdowns, guilt, homophobia, bullying

**雨宮双葉** **Amamiya Futaba**

**CHAT WITH MOO**

**< Hatsuharu>** i miss you

**< Hatsuharu> **i keep hoping you’ll answer when i bring you  your homework

**> Futaba< **i miss you too 

**< Hatsuharu>** ♡

**< Hatsuharu>** when are you coming back to school?

**> Futaba<** i think i’ll be okay soon 

Futaba stared at her reply for several minutes before hitting SEND. She’d woken up this morning feeling… different. Much more herself. Her reboot was nearly complete. 96 percent. 97 percent. She only needed to run one last test. Just one.

She had to talk to Ren.

Futaba had let Shinya in without question. Her little brother was quiet, unobtrusive. He made her feel safe. For weeks, all they had done was play vintage video games and watch  _ Fujimine _ . Shinya never asked her to talk about their dads like Ren would have. He never pushed her farther than she was able. Shinya let her heal, comfortably, hidden behind her screens, until the world felt real again. Painfully, heartbreakingly real, but real nonetheless.

But Ren. Ren would want to  _ talk _ . Ren would ask her if she was okay. How she was handling Papa and Tousan’s deaths. If she was ready for school and to be around people again. Ren would want to know  _ everything _ . And if Futaba could handle that conversation, then maybe she’d be ready to go back to school.

“Shinya?” she asked her brother after school. The title screen of Sugoi Bario screamed at them in garish colors but neither of them were hitting START.

“Yeah?”

Futaba paused, chewing her lip.

“How do you do it?”

Shinya shifted, drawing his feet up to himself and scratching an ankle. “Do what?”

Futaba looked at him, her glasses slipping down her nose. “Be okay.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Shinya snorted.

“You think I’m okay?” Her brother leaned back in his seat, his eyes on the game screen. “Futaba,” he said quietly, “I’m not okay.”

She stared at him.

“But Shin-chan,” she protested, “you’re doing…  _ amazing _ . You’re going to school, you haven’t skipped at all, and you’re getting good grades… I see you in my monitor － you’re helping around the house, and... Shinya, you’re keeping it together－”

“Because someone has to!”

Shinya had curled into himself, as if he didn’t want to have this conversation. Futaba had expected an explosion, tears and screams accompanying the hurricane that was her little brother. But Shinya was always one for shock, and he was whisper quiet as he finally, finally fell apart.

“Someone has to, Fuu,” he repeated, eyes downcast. “ _ Someone _ has to keep us together.” His eyebrows knit together as he spoke, words barely more than a murmur.

“Ren is so fucking  _ angry _ , Futaba. All the time. And I don’t know if it’s because of Papa and Tousan or because we’re here. Ruining this little fantasy world he’s made with his stupid boyfriend. Intruding on his life!”

Futaba felt her face grow hot. Running custom background calming program. Breathe in… Breathe out…

“Ryuuji’s useless,” her brother grumbled. “Sure, he’s there for Ren, but what about  _ us _ ? What about the dishes in the sink and the laundry? Who’s going to do all that? And then  _ you _ .”

Futaba’s breath caught in her throat as her brother whirled on her, his eyes glassy.

“Futaba, I love you. But this…” Shinya gestured around them. “Fuu-chan, I have been busting my  _ ass _ making sure that you’re okay. I thought we were going to lose you too. I have never seen you like this and it scares the  _ shit _ out of me, okay? You’re not the only one who lost their parents, Futaba!”

The dam broke. Tears cascaded down Shinya’s cheeks, his nose began to run.

“My dads are dead!” her brother hissed. “They’re dead and I’m angry too! I want to hide away too! But I can’t, because no one in this place is a single functioning person on their own!”

Futaba's eyes widened. Shinya clenched his fists.

Breathe in… Breathe out…

“You and Ren… you at least got to talk to them. They called us the day before, remember? You got to tell them you loved them. You got to  _ hear _ －” His voice broke, his body wracked with sobs for a moment before he got them under control.

“I didn’t get that. I didn’t take that call!” Shinya was yelling now, his eyes squeezed shut, tears and snot and sweat all over his face. “I was mad at them, I didn’t want to speak to them, and  _ I don’t even remember why! _ And you and Ren, you’re so consumed with yourselves, you never once asked me if I’m okay! I’m not fucking okay, Fuu!”

Futaba felt her stomach drop. She’d had no idea Shinya had felt this way, he was right. She didn’t know when she’d started crying, loud, ugly weeping. She felt selfish, so fucking selfish, to have made Shinya suffer alone. He deserved better than that. What kind of sister was she?

She acted on instinct. She nearly knocked over the computer chair in her haste to hug him to herself. She didn't know what she was doing. They had always been close, her and Shinya, but in this moment, his words echoing in her head, she had never felt farther away from him.

“I miss them, Fuu,” Shinya rasped, clawing at her shirt for purchase, getting snot in her hair. “It  _ hurts _ . I was such a piece of shit. I didn’t even speak to them…”

And Futaba held onto her brother as if she were drowning, as if she might lose him.

“Shinya, Shinya,” she gasped out, “they loved you, you know they did! It was the last thing they said － every night, every call, every time we left the house!”

Futaba pulled back and took her brother’s face in her hands, in a tangle of hair and tears and snot, her lip trembling. Their faces were red and her glasses streaked and foggy, they looked unsightly, but it didn’t  _ matter _ , nothing mattered but getting through Shinya’s thick skull.

“Papa and Tousan  _ loved _ you, Shinya! That’s why they let you get away with so much! No matter how much of a shit you were!” She wanted to shake him, wanted to crush him to her, wanted to reach into him and overwrite all his code until he believed her. “You didn’t need to talk to them － they  _ knew _ ! Even when you were mad and an asshole!”

She was screaming now and he was sobbing but that didn’t matter either, she didn’t care, all her processors were working again and she needed to use them, needed to help Shinya like he’d helped her, in the only way he’d ever really understood anything.

“You hid away, Shinya, you  _ hid _ ! Not like me, but like Ren, and you can’t  _ do _ that and expect help, you dumbass, you can’t!”

She didn't know if anything of this was getting through to him. She didn't know if she was doing it right, but the sight of her brother crumbling before her had executed some long forgotten program inside. Maybe if she screamed, maybe if she _howled,_ she would be able to do something before she blue screened out, but she'd never seen Shinya upset, not like this, and it terrified her.

“ _ Futaba,  _ **_what_ ** _ is going on? _ ” Now Ren was bursting into her room, his eyes wide, and he must have just gotten home, still dressed for the office and his shoes still on. Futaba ignored him, didn’t see him in that moment, so consumed was she with the pain their little brother had been hiding for so long.

She crushed Shinya to herself then, her hand cradling his head, and Shinya clung to her like a life preserver, white knuckled and crying.

“You have to tell someone, you idiot!” Futaba howled into his hair. “Me or Ren, you can’t just SUFFER like this! Even Ren talks to people! You have to talk to someone!” And Shinya nodded into her shirt, her long hair obscuring his face; and it dawned on Ren that the storm had finally broken over his siblings, that this was the fallout, and he tripped over his shoes as he rushed to gather them in his arms, nearly tipped over the overloaded computer chair, but who gave a shit. These were his siblings and they needed him.

Futaba hadn’t known Ren was there, hadn’t heard him over her own screaming and Shinya’s wailing, but when she felt a strong arm against her back she turned, and Shinya turned too, and suddenly the both of them were hugging Ren fiercely.

“You’re such an asshole!” Shinya sobbed into his shirt.

“Ren-chaaaaan!” Futaba wailed.

“I’m sorry,” Ren breathed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He repeated it over and over, his shame at having failed them threatening to swallow him whole.

He clung to his siblings, breathing in the scent of them. He hadn’t been this close to them, in any sense of the word, in so long. They’d pushed him away, and without realizing it, he’d pushed them right back, when they’d needed each other the most. Futaba had looked up to her brother for so long, idolized and adored him, that the realization that he was just as human as everyone else in her life contributed to the demise of her childhood. In a sense, Ren had been a third parent to her and Shinya, and with the deaths of their fathers came the death of Ren-chan too. He was no longer their infallible older brother with all the answers. He made mistakes, and plenty of them. He fucked up. He tried his best and sometimes fell short.

And strangely, Futaba felt comforted by this, as she pressed her face into her brother’s shoulder, glasses digging into the bridge of her nose. Their fathers’ deaths had made her flesh and bone, undeniably real in every sense, and it had done the same to her brothers. She held them as close as she could, as Ren cried his apologies into their hair, and sobbed until the tears dried up.

* * *

Futaba knew she had to go downstairs when people were actually home. Interact. It was still a scary thought. It was just dinner with her family, people she knew and loved, but the thought put her on edge. 

Breathe in… Breathe out…

Dinner was sushi. Ren had asked Ryuuji to pick it up on the way home, and Ryuuji had been beaming when he’d burst in, container in hand. (He’d gone all the way to Kichijoji for it － Futaba recognized the familiar sakura logo on the takeaway box from her favorite restaurant.) Futaba had braced herself － Ryuuji was loud － but her brother’s boyfriend had just said, in a tone close to that of a normal person, “Welcome back, Futaba. We missed you,” and pulled her into a hug. (He’d pulled Ren into one too, her brother hiding his face, and when he looked up again, Futaba saw her brother’s eyes were wet.)

She didn’t want to go back to school just yet, she’d told her brothers and Ryuuji. Not until their fathers’ bones were buried. She didn’t think she could. She’d sat with them, before their butsudan, every day, just talking, or tinkering with a new project, or playing a game on her laptop, while everyone was out. She couldn’t leave them alone. It would be one thing to leave the altar, but the bones… 

**CHAT WITH** **MOO**

**< Hatsuharu>** you did so bad in that last game

**> Futaba< **sorry 

**> Futaba< **distracted 

**< Hatsuharu>** school?

**> Futaba< **kind of

_[Futaba is typing]_

**> Futaba< **how do you leave your mom every day? 

**< Hatsuharu>** what?

**> Futaba< **your family all go out every day and your  mom is home. how do you do it?

**< Hatsuharu>** you mean her altar?

**< Hatsuharu> ** the altar isn’t actually her, fuu. more like…  a way for us to talk to her? and all our other  ancestors. my mom is with me and my brother  and my dad everywhere we are, not there. she’s  not confined to any one place. that’s not how  being dead works

**> Futaba< **my dads’ bones aren’t buried tho… 

**> Futaba< **and me and my brothers are adopted… 

**< Hatsuharu>** doesn’t matter

**< Hatsuharu>** they loved you

**< Hatsuharu>** you loved them

**< Hatsuharu>** wherever you are, they’ll be with you

**< Hatsuharu>** and i’ll be with you

**> Futaba< **promise? 

**< Hatsuharu>** promise

_ [Hatsuharu is typing] _

**< Hatsuharu>** answer the door tomorrow? when i bring your  homework? 

_ [Futaba is typing] _

_ [Futaba is typing] _

**> Futaba< **sure 

Futaba’s heart hammered as she stared at her phone. Before her fathers had passed, she hadn’t paid much attention to Sohma Hatsuharu. He was a boy in her class and that was that. But shortly into her leave of absence he had begun volunteering to bring her the homework she’d missed every day, and the day school let out for summer vacation, he had left her a note mixed with her summer homework.

> _ I’m really sorry about your dads. I lost my mother a few years ago,  _ _ if you need someone to talk to. _

Below he had written his phone number, and the URL for a social media website that Futaba did not use, but that she visited anyway, because he’d given it to her. It was his own profile, and once she’d awakened from her initial sorrow coma, she slowly immersed herself into his world. He posted pictures mostly － a funny cloud, a debatably “artistic” flower, a crappy video from a concert he’d attended. There were several of him with a boy she did not know, but who looked like him. One had them showing off matching stud earrings. One was taken some years ago, and showed a woman with wavy hair holding that boy as a child, standing next to a man who could only be Hatsuharu’s father, and Hatsuharu standing before them. 

The first picture she’d come across was a cow, a dopey looking cow with an expression that so perfectly matched the last time she’d seen the Sohma boy that she’d laughed for the first time since learning of the accident － a small, quiet laugh, but a laugh nonetheless － and privately dubbed Hatsuharu “Moo.” 

She did not take him up on his offer. Not then. She had confided in Yuzu, who had always patiently listened. She had been distracted by Shinya, who had safely worked with her through things Papa and Tousan used to do with her. She dared not speak to Yuuki-kichi, she knew he would tell Ren, and she was not ready to talk to Ren. It was Hikari who had convinced her to text Hatsuharu.  _ If u dont use that social media platform _ , she’d texted Futaba,  _ then u should txt him. It might help, u kno? Plus, u’ve been looking at his profile evry day 4 a wk - i’ve been looking at the IPs! _

(Sometimes Futaba regretted teaching Hikari basic internet skills. She was  _ right _ , but Hikari didn’t have to call her out like that.)

If Hatsu (as he’d told her to call him) had been surprised at her text, or that it had taken so long to get around to doing it, he said nothing. He was pleasant to talk to, Futaba found, very easy. Almost like Shinya. But Hatsu pushed her, just a little, just enough. He rarely directly brought up the subject of her parents, but he would drop hints. He would talk about his own mother, who had passed two years ago during the terrible winter that had claimed several lives.

“She’d always had weak lungs,” he had told her. “She’d caught a bad cold, and it got worse, and worse.” Futaba remembered that year － Tousan had been sick with fever that winter for over a week, and Papa had threatened to tie him to the bed to force him to rest. But she didn’t think it was appropriate to tell Hatsu that at the time.

He told her about his brother, and she told him about hers. His brother Momiji was younger, a year older than Shinya, and when their mother died, his brother had taken to wearing her things. A shirt here, a ring or another piece of jewelry there. Hatsu saw nothing wrong with it － his brother had been very close to their mother － but the boys at school had. He told Futaba this one day after getting in trouble for fighting. 

“I’m always fighting for him,” Hatsu said, like it was no big deal. “The last time, Fukuyama ripped his shirt.”

“What about this time?” Futaba asked. She avoided stating the obvious.  _ Fukuyama didn’t do anything to Momiji this time, because he’s in the hospital. _ Reminding Hatsu of Momiji’s condition always saddened him.

She heard him huff irritably over the phone. “He called Momiji a dirty word,” Hatsu grumbled. “So I socked him in the jaw.”

Futaba felt she already knew what the word was, and didn’t ask. She’d heard it enough while she was growing up.

She didn’t know when they’d progressed from texting to phone calls. They didn’t call a lot. Neither of them were much for  _ talking _ . She didn’t know when her stomach started flipping at seeing MOO on her phone screen, the little text icon blinking. She put it down to a server issue. Clearly there was something still wrong with her. 

She hadn’t actually  _ seen _ anyone but her brothers and Ryuuji since her fathers’ funeral. Not even Yuuki-kichi. And now she had agreed to accept her homework from Hatsu tomorrow, at the front door no less! The thought filled her with both excitement and dread.

She needed an outlet.

She logged online to Final Dreamcraft and immediately joined a battleground. Maybe ganking other players would reset her… whatever was messing up and she could breathe normally again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S NOTES**  
>  Hatsuharu Sohma is called Haru in Fruits Basket, but because of Haru Okumura, I've decided his nickname here is Hatsu. 
> 
> I really liked Persona 5's tendency to make silly puns or parodies of real life brands, and it's pretty noticeable in this chapter. Sugoi Bario is obviously Super Mario, Final Dreamcraft is a compilation of Final Fantasy and Starcraft. Fujimine, the TV show Futaba watches with Shinya, is sourced from Lupin III, and is a TV show/character that appeared in a lot of C'est la Vie's previous incarnations before 5.


	19. Ryuuji (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Futaba takes a big step, and Ryuuji has a moment of clarity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Fighting, blood, homophobia, alcoholism, adults committing violence against minors, blackmail

**坂本竜司** **Sakamoto Ryuuji**

A loud, sharp whistle blasted cut through the air, though it did little to stop the two boys on the ground. A small crowd had gathered around them, and surrounding students looked up at the sound of the whistle.

“Sakamoto-san! A little help!”

Ryuuji’s head had whipped around at the sound of the whistle, but he hadn’t found where it had come from. He’d just come from the school building, was waiting for Yuuki and chatting with Shiho, when he saw Ishihara, the Japanese lit teacher, trying to flag him down. Then he saw the fight. 

“Oh for fuck’s sake! It’s  _ Monday _ !” Ryuuji threw up his hands and flew down the steps.  _ We almost made it through the fucking day too. This’ll be a load of fucking paperwork _ .

Shiho came with him, trying to dissolve the crowd. “Alright everyone,” she cried, “nothing to see here! Everyone get going! Don’t you have cram school and clubs? Part time jobs?” She shooed away a student she knew, waving him away with, “Yutzuki, I know you have your part time job on Mondays! You’re going to be late!”

Ishihara and Ryuuji shoved through the circle that had gathered around the fighters － they were jeering, all of them against one and for the other － and pushed a few of them away in the direction that Shiho was pushing the other students in. Ryuuji groaned as he saw a flash of jewelry and two very evenly-matched boys. As usual, it was Sohma and Fukuyama.

Sohma sat on Fukuyama, beating the shit out of his face, but with a laugh, Fukuyama put all his weight into throwing his legs up, attempting to unseat Sohma in a(n admittedly impressive) wrestling move Ryuuji had only seen in anime. It didn’t work (because this wasn’t a fucking anime), but it  _ did _ work to Fukuyama’s advantage enough that he was able to throw Sohma off of him and jam his knee in Sohma’s stomach, raining his own punches down on the other boy to the cheers of “Shi-ge-ru! Shi-ge-ru!” from his friends.

“Break it up, break it up!” Ishihara shouted, diving for Fukuyama. He got an elbow to the face for his trouble, causing him to lose his grip on the boy, and Fukuyama grinned, wiping blood from his lip as Sohma staggered to his feet.

“Had enough yet?” Fukuyama taunted. “Look, I can’t help what people say about your brother, Sohma. If he wasn’t a fucking faggot in the first place－”

Sohma slugged him and Fukuyama went down.

“Shit!” Ryuuji grabbed Sohma by his dominant hand before the boy could swing again and stood between him and Fukuyama until Ishihara could haul him to his feet. 

“Shut your fucking mouth, Fukuyama!” Sohma threatened. “Shut your mouth or I’ll smash it into the concrete!”

“If your brother had shut  _ his _ mouth－”

“ _ Knock it off _ !” Ishihara thundered. 

Ryuuji took several deep breaths before speaking. At this rate, he was going to get himself arrested for beating Fukuyama himself. He couldn’t wait until this fucking kid graduated. 

“What. Happened.” was all he could manage while keeping his tone even. If he showed any expression, let himself get any louder, he would go off, and if he showed any emotion to this fucking kid, it would be all over, and  _ he _ would be Fukuyama’s target, and Ryuuji would have to resign in lieu of beating the fucking shit out of a child.

Shiho, now joined by several other teachers, was still shooing students away from the four of them, her voice angry and loud at the stragglers.

“This mother _ fucker _ －”

“Language, boy!” Ishihara snapped.

“Let him talk, Ishihara-san. He’s pissed,” Ryuuji countered.

“－when he comes back!”

“Sensei,” Fukuyama said, all anger and bite gone out of him, replaced with politeness. “All I did was mention that someone had put some graffiti－”

“It was you!”

“－in the first year boys’ bathroom of a  _ suggestive _ nature－”

“You wrote it!”

“－concerning his younger brother.” Fukuyama’s eyebrows knit together. “I didn’t think he’d react so violently. It’s not my fault his brother is mentally ill.”

“Oh  _ fuck _ you－” Sohma struggled against Ryuuji, and privately Ryuuji wanted to let the boy use Fukuyama as a punching bag, but something something  _ against school policy _ something something bullshit. He held tightly to Sohma’s arms.

“Enough,” he said with an air of finality. “Sohma, get that cut on your head looked at. Suzui-san will take you. Suzui-san!” He passed Sohma to Shiho, trusting that he would behave himself around a woman and trusting Shiho not to tolerate any bullshit, and then whirled on Fukuyama.

“How many times are we going to do this, Fukuyama?” He didn’t dare draw closer to the kid. He knew he’d punch him if he did. He took a deep breath and then blew it out noisily. “C’mon, Ishihara-san. Let’s take this idiot to the principal. Maybe this is finally enough to get him expelled.” 

_ There goes my one early day. This shit better get him expelled. _

* * *

Ryuuji was not in a good mood when he finally put his keys in the lock and let himself into the apartment. Mondays were the one day a week he could come home early. He could usually beat Ren home, and then he could at least wash the dishes for him if Shinya hadn’t already done them. But no. That Fukuyama kid had to go pick a fight with the Sohma kid again. He had the beginnings of a migraine pressing at the back of his occipital lobe, his leg throbbed from taking the stairs two and three at a time to break up the fight, and his mood did not improve as he saw Ren’s office shoes on the mat. Of course Ren was home. Of course he hadn’t been held up at the office. 

Fucking shit. He couldn’t catch a break.

Ryuuji kicked off his shoes (fuck it, he’d pick them up later), dragged himself to the couch, and flopped on it, laying an arm over his eyes. Maybe he’d die here and he wouldn’t have to deal with the Fukuyama bitch anymore. Maybe the Fukuyama bitch would turn twenty tomorrow and Ryuuji could beat the fuck out of him and not go to jail for assaulting a minor.

(Of course the principal hadn’t expelled him. She never agreed with what Ryuuji wanted. She just made him scrub the graffiti from the bathroom before he could go home. It was bullshit. And the graffiti was  _ obscene _ ; Ryuuji couldn’t believe Sohma hadn’t murdered Fukuyama before any of the teachers got there.)

With his eyes closed, he just laid there and breathed. He heard the shower faintly upstairs － that must be Ren. Futaba was probably upstairs as well, secluded in her room. He didn’t think her foray downstairs yesterday was going to suddenly be an all the time thing. Shinya’s shoes had been missing, so he wasn’t home yet. Ren would bitch when he got out of the shower. He’d already started dinner; Ryuuji could smell vegetables stewing.

He jerked awake some time later, unsure what had happened or how long he’d been asleep. His head still hurt, but no worse than before. His leg still throbbed. He wondered if it was hot to the touch, and then wondered if he’d need Ren’s help to get upstairs tonight. Probably. 

There it was again. Someone was knocking on the door.

Fuck. Great. Because it was so easy to get his ass all the way over there like this right now. 

He saw Futaba race downstairs － now  _ that _ was weird － long hair trailing behind her like a cape, headphones around her neck. Was he dreaming? He had to be dreaming. 

Futaba hesitated at the door. Stood on her toes to peer through the peephole. And then opened it a crack. Ryuuji couldn’t see who was there, and dream or not, he was concerned. Futaba was five foot nothing and about a hundred pounds soaking wet. He propped himself up, ready to hobble over there and loom threateningly behind her. She shouldn’t be answering the door.

“H-hi,” she stammered quietly.

“Hey,” said a warm voice. “You did it!”

Futaba laughed shakily. “Only took four hours of psyching myself up.” As Ryuuji pulled himself into a sitting position, she said, more seriously, “What happened to you?”

“Got in a fight.” The reply was dull. No emotion, but that meant no anger either. “I had to see the nurse before I could leave. Sorry I’m late.”

And Futaba hesitated before reaching forward and pushing the person. “Did she give you anything for being a blockhead?” she joked, and the other person laughed.

“All out of that,” the visitor said good-naturedly. “So… Your brother lets me come in. Would… would that be okay?”

What? Who did Ren let in? Who was Futaba even talking to?

“O-oh! Um.” Futaba’s hand, resting on the door, traced a nervous pattern in the wood. “Y-yeah. That’s okay. He’s at the store, if you were looking for him.”

“No. I wanted to see you.” 

Futaba stepped back, letting the cracked door widen, and in stepped the Sohma kid, smiling pleasantly. The nurse had cleaned the blood and dirt off his face, and taped up the cut on his eyebrow. He toed his shoes off by the door as Futaba shut it.

“I’ll, uh… I’ll get you some water,” Futaba said quickly. “Must be thirsty.” She smiled back at him and dashed into the kitchen, her cheeks pink, and the Sohma kid started rustling around in his backpack, pulling out a stack of papers.

And then he saw Ryuuji.

“Oh! Sensei.” Sohma stared at him with wide eyes, like a deer caught in the headlights, bag slung precariously over one shoulder and papers in hand. On his jaw had bloomed a deep purple bruise.

Ryuuji stared. Swung his feet to the floor, and tried extremely hard not to wince at how his leg screamed in pain over it. 

“Sohma,” he said calmly. “What are you doing here?”

Sohma seemed at a loss for words. He waved the packet without a sound. Ryuuji had never seen the kid anything less than angry or deep in competition － was he purposely being stupid?

Futaba came back with a water bottle, unperturbed by the seemingly sudden appearance of her brother’s boyfriend. “Oh, thank you,” she said, taking the packet and offering him the water. “I hope bottled is okay.”

Sohma nodded dumbly.

Ryuuji was so, so confused.

“Futaba,” he said slowly. “You… have a friend over?”

“Oh! No. Hatsuharu brings me my homework,” Futaba explains, a blush creeping over her face.

“Have for weeks,” the boy in question said distantly, still staring at Ryuuji. Futaba’s blush deepened. Ryuuji only had more questions from this.

“Um. Okay.” He scratched anxiously at his neck. “When’s… When’s Ren coming back?”

“He left twenty minutes ago. Probably soon.”

Ryuuji nodded. “Okay. I’m. I’m going to be in the kitchen. Holler if you need anything.”

“Okay.”

“Stay in the living room!” Shit. When had he become his mother?

“...Okay.” Futaba looked like she wanted the floor to open and swallow her. 

Ryuuji felt the same as Sohma watched him the entire time, as he slowly, purposely, carefully made his way to the kitchen with only the barest of limps and sat down heavily in a chair. He watched Futaba and Sohma take the couch he’d just vacated, and immediately pulled out his phone.

**CHAT WITH REN ♡**

**> Ryuuji< **REN 

**> Ryuuji< **REN SERIOUSLY 

**> Ryuuji< **WHEN ARE YOU COMING BACK 

**< Ren>** Five minutes, why? Is the building on  fire? 

**> Ryuuji< **FUTABA IS DOWNSTAIRS WITH A  BOY

**> Ryuuji< **WHAT DO I DO 

**< Ren>** ?

**< Ren>** What boy?

**< Ren>** Hatsuharu-kun? She answered the door  for him?

**> Ryuuji< **HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT  THIS???

**< Ren>** I think I’m supposed to be the one  freaking out, Ryu-Ryu

**< Ren>** He’s her friend from school

**< Ren>** Hey can you turn the burner down on  the stove please?

**> Ryuuji< **REN THIS IS THE BOY WHO GETS  IN ALL THE FIGHTS

**< Ren>** Ryuuji, you need to calm down. I’ll be  home soon

**> Ryuuji< **I AM CALM 

**> Ryuuji< **I AM SO CALM 

**> Ryuuji< **LOOK HOW CALM I AM 

_ [Ryuuji sent a photo] _

**< Ren>** Haha oh yeah. So calm. 

**< Ren>** Don’t forget the burner. 

How could Ren just sit there and think about the  _ stove _ when his sister － his shut in of a sister － had a  _ boy _ over? (But Ryuuji did turn down the burner, because Ren had asked him not once but twice.)

Ryuuji couldn’t even remember Futaba being friends with Sohma. But then again, Ryuuji was a gym teacher. He worked outside. Students spent the majority of their time inside. And gym was segregated by gender. Were they really friends? Fuck. He didn’t know. How could he ask Yuuki or Shiho without letting them know why he was asking? Would Kusaka know? Would it be weird if he asked her?

He was anxious. He fidgeted; he’d always been a fidgeter. He picked at a spot on the table. Tapped the foot of his good leg. Drummed his fingers on that leg and then the table. He resisted the urge to eavesdrop. He heard Futaba laugh and Sohma laugh and dragged himself to the fridge for a drink. 

And then he gave up and snuck, painfully, over to the kitchen doorway anyway, leaned against it with his arms crossed.

Futaba and Sohma’s backs were to him, but as Ryuuji watched, Sohma angled his body towards her as he spoke.

“There was a lot of math today,” Sohma was saying, flipping through pages in what Ryuuji assumed was the homework packet he’d come to deliver. “I didn’t understand half of it, so I hope you’ll be okay.”

Futaba laughed, papers rustling. “This stuff is easy.”

Of course it was. Futaba was a genius. But Ryuuji didn’t say that. He wasn’t supposed to be listening. 

“Hey, uh… Why is Sakamoto-sensei here?” Sohma asked suddenly, in that dull, quiet voice Ryuuji had only learned existed in the past ten minutes. “Are you two…”

(Ryuuji was sure here that he and Futaba made the same disgusted face.)

“Gross, no!” Futaba shrieked, staring at Sohma, her nose wrinkled. “He’s dating my brother.”

Sohma seemed relieved. “Oh. Good.”

“That’s sick.”

Sohma laughed. “Well what should I have thought?”

“ _ Sick _ .”

Futaba poked him in the chest at this, once, twice, and in all the years Ryuuji had known her, he’d never really seen Futaba touch anyone. But here she was, her finger on Sohma’s chest, and Ryuuji thought maybe her parents’ deaths had really made her come undone.

The front door opened then and as one, three heads swivelled to look. Ren, grocery bag in hand, gave them a small wave and a neutral, “I’m home.”

“Welcome home,” Futaba replied, and Ryuuji didn’t fail to notice the bright smile that spread over his boyfriend’s face at the sight of his sister downstairs.

“Hey,” he said, his voice gentle. To Sohma, his voice normal again, Ren said, “Nice to see you again, Hatsuharu-kun.”

Sohma nodded. “I’m glad Futaba is feeling better.”

“So are we.” Ren’s eyes slid over to Ryuuji, leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, and he quirked an eyebrow. “What are you up to, Ryuuji?”

Futaba and Sohma, both now alerted to his presence, turned around again to look at him over the back of the couch. 

Fuck. Now they all knew he’d been spying.

“Stretching my legs,” he lied, and Ren’s smirk told him he knew better.

“Come help me with dinner,” Ren asked, in a tone that brokered no argument. “Hatsuharu-kun, you should head home for dinner too. Your parents will be worried.”

Sohma looked like he’d rather do anything but go home, but he got to his feet all the same, bowing his head. 

“Nice to see you again, Amamiya-san, Sakamoto-sensei.” He turned to Futaba. “I’ll text you?”

The blush was back, and Ryuuji wanted to grab Ren and make him look at his sister and ask him  _ What exactly does that MEAN _ , but he didn’t. Futaba nodded at Sohma, who smiled at her, before slipping his shoes back on and letting himself out.

“That was an unexpected sight,” Ren mused, grinning at his sister. “Didn’t want Ryuuji to get the door?”

“Ryuuji was asleep!” Futaba said defensively. “Shut up!”

Ren laughed. “Okay, okay. C’mon, Ryu-Ryu,” he said, taking the shopping into the kitchen. Ren always knew when not to push. Futaba darted upstairs, phone already in hand, and Ryuuji had no choice but to hobble behind Ren, eternally thankful that he was the younger brother in his family and not the elder.

“You okay?” Ren asked, pulling a package of meat out of the plastic bag. It seemed pork was on the menu with the vegetables. Probably smothered in tonkatsu sauce, if the ingredients on the counter were any sort of clue.

“Yeah, fine.” Ryuuji leaned against the counter, keeping all of his weight off his bad leg, trying to make it look effortless. Cool, even. “Why?”

“You’re sweating.”

Fuck.

“I’m just hot,” Ryuuji said quickly.

“I mean, you are…” Ren agreed, but his tone suggested that he knew his boyfriend had lied to him again. He said nothing however, merely cut the pork into cubes and set them on the stove, seasoning them by rolling them first into a pile of spices. He was quiet for several moments, adjusting the heat before washing his hands and drying them carefully. He turned to Ryuuji.

“Can we talk?” he asked softly. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” Ryuuji shifted his weight to the ball of his foot, leaning heavily into the counter. Fuck, his leg hurt. He reached down with his right hand, the hand on the same side as his bad leg, and rubbed at it, wincing.

“You’ve been more stiff lately.”

“We’ve had less sex lately,” Ryuuji joked.

“Ryuuji.”

Ryuuji quieted. He watched, as if in slow motion, as Ren leaned forward and covered the hand on his thigh with his own.

“Is something wrong?” Ren asked, eyes boring into his own behind the glasses.

“No.” Ryuuji was firm in his lie. To Yuuki and Shiho, his mother, himself. And now Ren. Nothing was wrong with him. He was fine. He had to be fine, for Ren.

Ren didn’t believe him, doubt written across his face. He pressed his hand down on Ryuuji’s, down on his bad leg. It hurt.

“You’re limping today.”

“I broke up a fight. A fight with  _ the Sohma kid who was just here with Futaba _ .”

“You limp every day, Ryuuji,” Ren said evenly, ignoring the attempt at changing the subject.

Ryuuji tried to pull Ren’s hand off. Ren pressed harder. Pain shot down his leg and he gritted his teeth.

“Did you go to the doctor?” Ren asked. 

“Don’t need a doctor. I’m okay. Nothing’s wrong,” Ryuuji lied.

His boyfriend sighed. 

“Ryuuji.” Ren was losing patience. Only Ryuuji could do this to him. “Why are you lying to me?”

“I’m not －”

“You are.” His voice was like ice, shattering Ryuuji’s words where they stood. “I know something’s wrong. Something’s been wrong. I’m not stupid, Ryuuji. Just tell me so I can help you.”

He let go of Ryuuji then and the sudden loss of pressure against his thigh hurt almost as much as the application. Ryuuji gasped, had to throw himself back into the counter to keep from pitching forward and falling onto the floor.

Ren wasn’t heartless. He was upset, but he loved Ryuuji. He brought him a chair, and gently pushed him into it. He sat in his own chair, so neither of them were above the other. Dominant male shit or something, as Yuuki would say.

“Ryuuji.” Ren’s voice was soft, and the hand that returned to his thigh was soft, barely touching the hot skin. _“Anata,_ I know I haven’t… I haven’t been all there lately. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Ryuuji gasped, leg still throbbing even under the ghost of Ren’s fingers. “No, it’s okay －”

“It’s not.”

“You’ve had a lot going on －”

“So have you,” Ren said patiently. “And my problems have made you think you need to keep things from me. And I’ve  _ known _ and haven’t  _ asked _ , because I’m a selfish piece of shit.” He brought his free hand to Ryuuji’s face, thumb stroking his cheek. “I’m sorry. Please. I’m listening. What’s going on?”

Ryuuji was torn. If he said it, if he admitted to it, then suddenly things became about  _ him _ and his stupid leg and his stupid health, and Ren still needed so much from him. Futaba was just starting to return to normal, Shinya was breaking down, and this new, attentive, fussing Ren was  _ different _ . How long could Ren keep that up before he broke again? But if he said nothing… If he kept lying, kept insisting he was fine… Sooner or later, Ren would snap. The lie would get bigger, become this awful thing between them. And Yuuki would tell Ren anyway. It was in his nature. In a battle between Ren and Ryuuji, Yuuki would always, one hundred percent, choose Ren. Ryuuji was honestly surprised Yuuki hadn’t already caved.

He sighed. Looked away, to the table, to the floor. Anywhere but Ren. He hated admitting he was weak. He hated admitting that he was human.

“The doctor thinks I need to have surgery,” he murmured. “On my leg. Or I won’t be able to use it anymore.”

“He’s always thought that,” Ren said slowly, “ever since you broke it.”

Ryuuji shook his eyes, eyes firmly on the linoleum. There were four squares in each linoleum tile. “No,” he demurred softly. “He thinks it could be as soon as next year.”

Ren was quiet as Ryuuji explained everything his doctor had told him that April, each word seared into his mind and carefully buried. He covered Ryuuji’s hand with one of his own, gently rubbing circles into the skin. He did not interrupt as Ryuuji told him how at first he’d put off telling him because of the fear. Not of surgery, because he would sleep through that, but of recovery. Of physical therapy. Of pins in his thigh and a steel rod in his leg, of learning to walk again, of possibly never running again. Of the pain that kept him up at night as a teen, pain that used to bring his mother running, that used to keep Ann up when she’d sleep over. Fear of letting Ren down. And then, Ren’s fathers had died, and the thought of surgery had been pushed far from his mind, because Ren was more important, Ren’s well being was more important, and then Ren’s siblings’, and how could he be of any use if he was in bed, or being shuffled to and from the hospital or outpatient therapy? Ren said nothing at all until Ryuuji was finished, until he took a deep, shaky breath and stared down the cracks in the kitchen table. He brought Ryuuji’s hand to his lips and pressed them very gently to the skin. Did not let his hand go.

If there was one thing Ryuuji had learned in their four year relationship, it was that Ren was not easy to break through to. He kept things bottled inside, and learning the ins and outs of his subtle form of communication, the way his shoulders tensed just so, the way he held his hands, the way the corners of his mouth quirked, was so alien to Ryuuji that if he hadn’t found himself so completely drawn to this strange man, he never would have asked him out to that second date to Inokashiro Park, or the third to the movie theater in Shinjuku. At times he envied Yuuki, how his friend just looked at Ren and  _ knew _ how to react, what to say.

What Ryuuji sometimes failed to understand, what his mother and his sister had spent years trying to explain to him, was that he was the exact opposite. And for someone like Ren, someone so used to keeping things inside, interacting with someone who let everything show plain as day, as unJapanese as they come, was just as alien as he thought Ren to be. And for  _ Ryuuji _ to be the one keeping secrets, well. Ren must have known that immediately. Must have understood right away that there was a secret chapter inside his open book of a boyfriend, recognized some sort of cue that Ren himself performed every day. Moreso than his usual routine of massaging his thigh at the end of the night, or complaining in an offhand way of being sore. Ren  _ knew _ , and had been respectfully waiting for Ryuuji to tell him, until today, when Ryuuji was in enough pain he couldn’t put weight on his stupid leg at all.

He felt a little stupid, something he hadn’t felt around Ren in a long time, and he knew Ren knew it, knew by the soft circles Ren’s thumb was rubbing on the back of his hand, by how Ren wasn’t looking at his face but was still looking at him. Trying to comfort him without making him feel uncomfortable. Four years ago this conversation would have been unthinkable. They wouldn’t have gotten each other at all, wouldn’t have been able to progress past “what’s wrong,” and _fuck_ , did he love this man. His face was still shame-tinged red, his eyes firmly on a point near the floor, but he captured Ren’s thumb with his own and squeezed, because there was no one else he could be this vulnerable before.

Ren left his thumb there, stopped rubbing circles on the back of Ryuuji’s hand. “ _ Anata _ ,” he said softly, and Ryuuji expected an admonishment. Ren did not use pet names, was less liberal even with  _ Ryu-Ryu _ than Ryuuji was with either of them. But as he so often did, Ren surprised him. 

“Anata,” he said again, “I’m sorry you felt I was more important than you. That my problems mattered more. We are  _ equal _ , Ryuuji. Neither of us is more important than the other.” He placed his free hand on Ryuuji’s good knee and squeezed. “Neither of us is  _ ever _ more important than the other. Okay?”

And maybe that was something learned from having two fathers, because in Ryuuji’s house, his father had definitely considered himself more important than his mother. His mother had hid every issue from his father, and even though his mother had been a free woman for over twenty years now, he could see how badly it still affected her. There were things she hid even from herself, dubbing them ‘less important,’ and in his mind, Ryuuji had become the ‘less important’ in his relationship with Ren.

Ren leaned forward in his seat so that their knees touched, their foreheads touched, and laid a hand on Ryuuji’s cheek. “It’s like you think I judge you for this,” he said softly.

“Don’t you?” Ryuuji looked at him. 

“We all have something less than ideal about ourselves. You tell me every day about my inability to discuss feelings,” Ren teased. He carded his hand through Ryuuji’s bleached hair, something he’d never admit he really enjoyed about his boyfriend, looking thoughtful. “But. You’ve told me I’ve gotten better since… Since my dads passed. So, I think we really need to work on getting you better.”

Ryuuji opened his mouth to protest, again, out of habit, that nothing was wrong with him. He was silenced by his own thoughts, remembered that he’d already told Ren, just now, that there was.

“I love you, you know,” Ren murmured. “You don’t need to always be so strong. You can be afraid, and admit you’re afraid. You can worry and tell me so. But  _ don’t _ put yourself at risk for me, okay? I don’t care if you walk again or go back to work － I care if you’re  _ happy _ . Anata, you will die inside if you can’t run.” He pulled away to look at Ryuuji just then, just for a moment, before kissing him. “It’s the only thing in the world that  _ really _ makes you happy.”

“That’s not －”

Ren shushed him with a finger to his lips. “You lost your scholarship. Your sponsors. Your shot at the Olympics. I’m not letting you lose running too. I’m  _ not _ , Ryuuji.” And Ren’s face was kind, but his eyes were steel. Determined, and Ryuuji loved him for it. Ever since that day, Ryuuji had carried his own darkness. Ren wasn’t the only one with his own terrible awful worst day.

Ryuuji had been sixteen, on top of the world. The best runner in pre-college Tokyo, and the fastest sprinter in Honshu, beating even the fastest college student, Kubota Megumi from Tokyo University. His grades weren’t top but neither were they terrible, and he had sponsors to cover the fees his high school scholarship didn’t, the promise of a full scholarship to Nittaidai University, and actual scouts from the Olympics scoping out his track meets, his practices, his own personal workouts. His coach had arranged a mock meet, between the girls and the boys. The star girl, Takeda Minamo, needed some work and could learn from him, his coach said, but she was nearly as fast. Ryuuji hadn’t minded. Had never minded. The infamy had never gone to his head. He was still Sakamoto Ryuuji, the jokester, the first one to lend a hand or share his lunch. He knew Takeda, and if she needed help, he’d do whatever he could. Maybe they’d go to Nittaidai together and compete in the Olympics together. Wouldn’t that be something?

Except it wasn’t. One way or another, Coach had failed to completely clear the track, and some kids were screwing around in the eye. Takeda missed them. Ryuuji didn’t. 

His mother tried for the rest of the year to sue the school, and Coach in particular. His sister, in her first year of university, had insisted that Coach was always jealous of Ryuuji, because his own track career had never taken off while Ryuuji’s was skyrocketing. (It was this incident that caused his sister to pursue investigative journalism, he knew.) Coach eventually resigned once the rumors of sabotage reached an all time high, but the damage was done. Ryuuji’s femur had been snapped where the kids had fallen on him, and while he underwent surgery and physical therapy and weeks in the hospital with only Ann and his family for company, his sponsors changed allegiance. Some went to Hanamoto, the number two on the boys’ team. The rest went to Takeda. He was bedridden for so long that he lost his scholarship, and Takeda got that too. She took his place at Nittaidai U, and Ryuuji’s one bitter consolation prize was that she never made it to the Olympics. He’d watched, the remote clenched tightly in his fist and ready to be thrown, for her name, for her face on the screen, but it had never appeared. Not in the first or the second since his accident. She’d taken his place and squandered it.

Running had been his first love. He felt free － from his father, from the oppressive air at home, from the stench of alcohol and reek of sadness, from problems at school, gay slurs, his mother’s disappointment, his sister’s problematic life, breakups, embarrassment, anger. Running let him forget all of that. It didn’t judge him. It didn’t ask questions. It let him be free. If he didn’t have that… If he couldn’t wake up at 5am every day and run around the block to wake up, or run up and down the stairways at Kaibara to burn off steam from the Fukuyama kid, or run  _ at all _ … 

If he couldn’t run…

_ Then what was the point? _

Slowly he nodded. Ren understood him. Was one of the few people who really did. He loved Ren. He really, honestly did. But if all he could do the rest of his life was exist, was hobble as a cripple, Ryuuji would rather die. He needed to run like he needed to breathe. 

Ren kissed him, slow and soft. He didn’t begrudge him the secret he’d kept, or his position as second to what most people would call just a hobby. Ren understood him, maybe better than anyone. And Ryuuji was scared － terrified, even － of everything he’d told Ren. Going through everything the first time had been difficult. Painful. Insomnia-inducing nightmare fuel. But Ren would be there this time, and maybe it would go a little better. He would call his mother, and take both of them to his next appointment with the doctor. 

Maybe, with Ren there, he could do it. Maybe, with Ren there, he could do anything.

* * *

He could still back out. The phone was still ringing. Maybe she’d forgotten it at home. 

“Moshi moshi! Sakamoto Ichiko here!”

Fuck.

“Ikko, hey.”

“Is that my baaaaby brotherrrr?”

And of course she was drunk. Ryuuji was vaguely reminded of why he called his sister less these days. Sober she was okay, but drunk she was… pretty unbearable.

“Ikko, it’s two in the afternoon,” he said, rubbing his temples. He’d stayed home from work today, his leg giving him problems － right now it was propped up on the couch under a stack of pillows, and every half hour he’d put an ice pack on it. If he didn’t know intimately what a broken bone felt like, he’d swear he broke it yesterday.

“And it’s happy hour somewhere!” Ichiko shrieked into the phone. Ryuuji had to hold it away from his ear while she laughed at herself.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” he asked.

“Aren’t  _ you _ supposed to be working?” she echoed. 

“Yeah. That’s kind of why I’m calling.” He wished he could pace. The movement would calm him. It wasn’t his sister so much that set him on edge (though her drinking did. He would have thought their father’s alcoholism would have put her off drinking forever like it had him), but what he wanted to ask her.

“What’ssss wrong, Jiji-chaaaaan?” 

Ryuuji wanted to reach through the phone and smack her like when they were kids and he didn’t know any better about smacking girls. (But she was his sister and didn’t count as a girl.) He wanted to haul her drunk ass home and toss her fully clothed into the shower and make her the strongest coffee he had. He knew she could do her job drunk (and often did), and do it just as well as she did sober, but he just found her so irritating to talk to drunk. He imagined she was sitting at some shady bar eating snow crab － she was in Hokkaido right now, wasn’t she? － with her sunglasses on inside, one plate and twelve empty glasses before her. Maybe with her photographer, if he hadn’t run off already. 

He sighed.

“Ikko, focus. You’re fucking annoying drunk. Didn’t Dad teach you anything?”

There was a moment of silence. And then. 

“Beer or liquor. Not both.”

He loved his sister, but sometimes he really did hate her.

“Ikko!”

“Okay!” There was the sound of cracking － for fuck’s sake, she  _ was _ eating crab!

“Are you in Hokkaido?” he demanded.

“Maaaaaybe.”

“You owe me crab,” he said, “for putting up with this. Four of them.”

“Four crabs are expensive!”

“So is alcohol.”

“I’m not paying for it,” she giggled.

“Ikko!”

“ _ What? _ ”

“I’m trying to talk to you, fucking hell!” He didn’t know how his mother did it. Sometimes he was thankful he was gay and couldn’t accidentally let loose any little Ryuujis into the world.

“What do you waaaaaant?” Ichiko whined. “I’m trying to enjoy my luuuunch.”

“Your drinks with a side of crab,” he grumbled. “Look. Has Mama called you?”

“Not recently? Why? Is she going to yell at me too? I’m not buying her a crab!”

“You should buy her a fucking crab.” Ryuuji sighed. This was getting nowhere. He propped himself up a little straighter and started over.

“Ikko,” he said again, ignoring her girly  _ Hmmmm _ . “Um. So I’ve got a problem.”

“Oh no! Who’sss bothering my Jiji? I’ll ssstomp him into the dussst!” Ichiko threatened, and Ryuuji was briefly transported back to when he was eleven and Ichiko was fourteen, and she’d beat the fuck out of his crush because the boy had been grossed out by another boy liking him.

“The doctor,” he deadpanned. “I, uh… I need another surgery.”

There was silence on the other end, save for the static that came with taking a call in a public place. 

“On… isss it… your leg?” Ichiko said after a minute. She sounded like someone struggling to wake from a deep sleep.

Ryuuji pressed his mouth into a thin line. “Yeah.”

He heard a few  _ clanks －  _ probably from the crab, or the drinks, or the scrabble to find something that didn’t have alcohol in it. Ichiko had dealt with their father longer than he had, and had deeper scars － probably why she drank － but some things could force her to sober up quickly. 

“Shit. Fuck. Wait.” Her voice came from far away. He suspected the phone had been placed on the table. And then her voice was close in his ear again, and she said, still sluggish, “Why? What’sss going on?”

And Ryuuji told her what his doctor had said, the fifth time he’d repeated this, and Ichiko ordered coffee and water and bread in his ear and her words grew more steady as they talked. She was definitely still drunk, but the functioning drunk reporter who got shit done, the one who had earned the right to this story in Hokkaido. 

“Shit, Jiji,” she said when he was done, her mouth full of bread. “Are you okay?”

“I’m not happy, no.”

A pause. And then he asked, dread pulling at his stomach, “Did you ever find anything － anything real － about Coach? When I had my accident?”

Silence. Ichiko was probably drinking her coffee, or thinking, but it made Ryuuji’s stomach churn.

“I did, Jiji,” she said quietly. “I found a lot.”

Ryuuji felt like a balloon, and his sister had just stabbed him with a needle.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

“Mama told me not to.”

“ _ Mama _ ? Why?”

“She told me it would only make you angrier,” Ichiko replied. “I didn’t just sit on it,” she added defensively, knowing her brother was about to interject. “I made copies and gave one to the school. I told them I’d send another to  _ Tokyo Shinbun  _ and another to the police if they didn’t pay your hospital bills. Mama couldn’t pay those, Jiji. It was too much.”

“You blackmailed the school?” Ryuuji was incredulous.

“I did.” Ichiko sounded proud of herself. “And then I switched my major from biology to journalism.”

Ryuuji leaned back into the cushions. “Fuck,” was all he managed.

“Fuck indeed,” his sister agreed.

“You should’ve been a cop.”

“Cops can’t do what I do.” He could practically hear the evil in her smile. 

“So… He did it on purpose?” Ryuuji asked after several long moments. “Ruined my career?”

He heard his sister’s heavy sigh. If the roles had been reversed, and it was his sister asking him this, he would never tell her, because their mother had told him not to. But Ichiko was not him, and this was the incident, the defining moment of both of their lives, that had spurred her quest to expose truths to the masses.

“Yes,” she said reluctantly. “Coach Kaida orchestrated your accident. You gave him face as his star, Jiji. But he was too jealous to let you be better than him. He did it at the school he’d taught at before ours too. He ruined another life before yours. He probably would have ruined Takeda’s too if Mama hadn’t gotten him suspended.”

Ryuuji didn’t know how he felt. He’d always thought Takeda and Coach had been in on this together. His mother and sister had always insisted it had been Coach alone who had been responsible. He didn’t know if he felt relieved that they had all been somewhat right, or upset because they were all right. 

“I still have copies,” his sister offered. “Do you want one?”

But what good would that do? His accident had been a lifetime ago. Reading what his sister had found, her first clumsy attempt at espionage, his coach’s intentions, the newspaper clippings of the other student whose life mirrored Ryuuji’s… All it would do would bring up old hurts. It wasn’t why he had called her. It wouldn’t unbreak his femur, erase the need for this surgery. It wouldn’t make him feel better. 

“No,” he said. “I just needed to know if he did it. Thanks, Ikko.”

“Yeah.” There was a sound of  _ clink _ ing, like glasses being removed, and his sister spoke politely to someone else. Probably the waiter. And then she was back, and close in his ear, and she asked, in a gentle tone he hadn’t heard in a long time, “When is your surgery? I’ll tell my editor I need a few days for a family emergency.”

“That’s okay,” he said automatically. “You need to do your job.”

“I’m your sister, dumbass. Looking after you  _ is _ my job.”

And Ryuuji couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. She was right, in a way, as much as he didn’t want to admit it. The Sakamotos looked after their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S NOTES**  
>  Reminder that in Japan, the age of majority is twenty.
> 
> Nittaidai University is a famous university in Japan with a top notch athletics program.
> 
> Sakamoto Ichiko is Ohya. I dubbed her "Ryuuji's sister" to my boyfriend on our first playthrough of P5, because imo, they look alike. (Clearly she's just married and that's why her name is Ohya and not Sakamoto.) I actually really like Ohya (not her ability, but her confidant background) - her story is SO interesting - and that's why I made her best boi Ryuuji's older sister. 
> 
> Ichiko's ability to "sober up" quickly is taken directly from an ex of mine. More than once, I watched him go from seriously trashed to passably sober during tough situations. She's still drunk, of course, but just trying for her brother's sake to not be an idiot.


	20. Ren (Part 3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Futaba finds a shrine, and together the Amamiya family finally lays the ashes of Jun and Tatsuya to rest.

**雨宮蓮** **Amamiya Ren**

Murakawa Shrine was small and secluded, with a small wood and pond to one side, tucked away from the bigger, more tourist friendly shrines of Omori. It bore two huge, fantastic lion dogs at the front of the worship hall, their faces uniquely carved and slightly different from one another. The pond held a turtle and koi, and one － a huge scarlet she-beast － splashed up high at the approach of visitors. A crow cawed their arrival, and far from being intimidated, Ren felt like he  _ belonged _ at this shrine.

Futaba had found it, nearly a week ago now, and just as they were all doing today, Ren had taken the train to Omori and climbed the shrine steps and spoken to the priest, a short, fat man with kindly eyes, and told him all he knew.

_ “My fathers met at this shrine,” Ren had told the priest, flanked by two miko. Another, seemingly his attendant, served them tea, her face expressionless. “Over thirty years ago.” He had pulled out a photograph, painstakingly pulled from the only photo album his parents had, of a young Tatsuya and Jun, sometime after getting together. Jun, immaculately dressed in a way Ren did not remember, and Tatsuya, a punk to the core, arms around each other and grinning, posing by the  _ ema _ , the Shinto board bearing wishes and prayers, their own hanging above them.  _ I want to remain with this man until my death _ , read their prayer, and they were young, so young, to have made up their minds on a decision like that, Tatsuya’s rough script underlying Jun’s neat calligraphy. Jun had always said it was as close to a wedding as they’d ever had, and it had been orchestrated by ‘a priest at the shrine where we’d met.’ _

_ “You’re that priest, aren’t you, Ojisan?” Ren asked, unsure his judgement but trusting Futaba’s. The miko by the priest’s side, the one with the bigger nose, narrowed her eyes and made to reprimand his term of disrespect, but the priest held out his hand. _

_ “Rei-san,” he said to her, “in the cabinet in my office, the second drawer. Please find the folder labeled  _ Amamiya _. I have the feeling that that is why our guest is here.” And the miko, Rei-san, bowed herself out, still glowering at Ren. _

_ “Forgive her,” he told Ren. “She has certain ideas how I should be addressed as kannushi of a temple. Call me priest, or uncle, or grandfather － it makes no difference to me.” He smiled kindly and took the photograph from Ren, brought it close to his tired eyes. “I know these two,” he said fondly, “and I remember this day. It’s hard to tell, but it was raining. We all got soaked running back into the hall.” _

_ Ren swallowed. Haruka had been right. He’d spoken to his father’s employee after Yuuki had mentioned it, and she had told him his parents had met at a temple. Tatsuya had been dating someone, and Jun had been smitten, and when they’d bumped into each other again, single this time, Jun asked Tatsuya on a date and he had agreed. But Haruka could not remember the name of the temple, only that it had been in Omori, and Ren had turned to Futaba for the rest. _

_ “That day is where their name comes from,” the priest had told him. He wrote the characters of Ren’s name, Amamiya, on a piece of paper. “They wanted to start over. Their families shunned them for being together. Told them they no longer had any right to their old names. So they made a new one, for themselves and the family they hoped one day to have. Ama, the character for rain. Miya, the character for temple. Your family was born here.” He grinned at Ren, like they shared a secret. “I was always hoping you’d come back.” _

And now they had, but not for the reasons the priest had wanted. He was waiting for them, in full Shinto regalia, and his miko － the important one with the long hair, the proper one with the big nose, and the pretty one with the short hair － had set up a beautiful imitation of a funeral service. They had not followed protocol for a Shinto funeral － Tatsuya and Jun had left no instructions, no inclination at all that they had even wanted their bones interred at Murakawa Shrine － but the priest had decided to overlook it, just this once.  _ The gods will understand _ , he had said. Ren had once again invited his family － his sister and brother, Ryuuji and his mother, Yuuki and his parents － for this service, to finally lay his parents to rest. Murakawa Shrine did not inter many bones, but anyone who married here was permitted to be buried here; it felt right for them to be here, where they had met, where their story started. Where the Amamiyas had started. So the eight of them and the urn containing Tatsuya and Jun caught the train to Omori and met at the shrine’s gate, each of them dressed in a plain black kimono once again. The eight of them walked the seventy-seven steps up to the main walk, to the prayer hall, where the priest said several sutras for Tatsuya and Jun. The eight of them walked to the mausoleum, slightly off the main walk, where the bones would be interred, the only noise their sandals whispering on the stone and the crow cawing overhead.

Mrs Sakamoto wrapped an arm around Futaba, who hugged her tight, as the priest chanted a sutra about love to the bones of Tatsuya and Jun. Mrs Mishima cried softly, her head bowed, while her husband held a tissue and his arm out to her, uncharacteristically kind; and Yuuki placed his hand on Shinya’s shoulder, and Shinya let himself be comforted. Each mourner stepped forward to drop incense with three fingers over the urn, as they should have done at a proper Shinto funeral, and the long-haired attendant kept careful watch over it all. 

Ren stood stoic over the ceremony. He was the oldest son, the head of the family. He had ordered the gravestone, made sure both his fathers’ names were as prominent as the other. He felt distinctly alone in his position, his sister and brother beneath him as Japanese custom dictated, comforted by his surrogate family. His eyes burned and he watched as the miko lowered the urn into the ground, as his fathers really, truly, and finally left him.

He felt a small touch on the palm of his hand and reflexively he grabbed it, squeezed it tight, and it was Ryuuji beside him, squeezing just as fiercely, pressing his shoulder against Ren’s, offering himself a pillar of support for Ren to collapse into, just as he always had. From bad days at work, squabbles with his siblings, to the very worst day of his entire life, Ryuuji had always been the pillar that held him up. Ren allowed himself to slump, ever so slightly, into the other man, his head against Ryuuji’s shoulder as his parents were covered with earth and the family’s ears filled with sutras, the smell of incense faint in the air and the smell of rain heavy as the day started to cloud and then to drizzle. And it was fitting, really, for it to end this way. For the story of Jun and Tatsuya to begin in the rain and end in the rain, and none of them made any move to get out of it, just stood as the water lay like a light coating over their clothes and hair, like Jun and Tatsuya themselves had reappeared one final time, before their family, before their children, children themselves like in their wedding photo, grinning widely because they were home, the Amamiyas had a home, and no one could take it from them. This was their grave, this was their family, this was their name. 

For the first time in his life, Ren felt really and truly like he belonged. He was safe, with his family, with the man he loved, with his best friend and his surrogate parents, at the shrine that had birthed his family. The ceremony concluded, and the miko and the priest left, and they felt a finalty to the ceremony and bowed to their new ancestral home, to Jun and Tatsuya, and left quietly, letting the rain fall on their skin like kisses from their parents.

Ren held Ryuuji’s hand the entire way home, and if Ryuuji was surprised he didn’t let on, and when they had shucked off their wet clothes and wriggled into something warm and dry, Ren pulled his boyfriend close, pressed his mouth to Ryuuji’s ear, and murmured a question, a question of just two words that had Ryuuji grinning from ear to ear and kissing him, smiling against his lips. 

Because if there was anything his fathers had taught him, it was that if you found something precious, hold onto it; and there was nothing more precious to him than Ryuuji, someone he wanted to be with until the day he died.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **AUTHOR'S NOTES**  
>  Ojisan (伯父さん ・ おじさん) means "uncle." It's not the proper term for a kannushi (head of a Shinto temple) but this one is a little... eccentric. In more polite Japanese, Ren might have called the priest お祖父さん・おじいさん ojiisan (dragging out the i sound), which is the word for "grandfather."
> 
> The name Amamiya is written with the characters for rain 雨 (ama) and shrine 宮 (miya). At the time Jun and Tatsuya were "married," gay marriage in Japan was still illegal. (In some places, it still is. I believe even Tokyo only legally recognizes it as a "domestic partnership" atm.) In Japan, hyphenated surnames are not allowed, and married couples are not allowed to have different last names. Tatsujun shed their birth names and renamed themselves after Murakawa Shrine, the "rainy shrine" where they were married. (The marriage was not legal at the time, but this priest performed a ceremony for them as if it was.)


	21. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The closing credits of C'est la Vie 5, season 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags: Anxiety and feels, mourning, surgery, homophobia, backstory
> 
> ****************  
> Remember that I originally wrote C'est la Vie 5 as the novelization of a manga. The Epilogue makes that abundantly clear, and imagine as you are reading this that you're flipping through pages laid out as such.

**終章** **EPILOGUE**

_ (Spread across several panels, we see Futaba back at school: in class with Sohma Hatsuharu, in gym with Shiho, blushing furiously while yelling at Shinya when Hatsu walks her home. She goes back to work at the electronics store and is accosted by Hikari, demanding to know all about Hatsu, the boy who walked her to work and is now looking around at the computer parts in mild confusion. _

_ We see Shinya slowly return, not completely but somewhat, to his old self. Not quite the delinquent that he used to be, who used to skip class and fail tests, the one who questions the teachers and gets reprimanded, the one who smokes behind Crown Karaoke with Nefuro, who kicks ass at Demi Bout. We see him crush on Unazuki, and meet Nefuro’s sister, who kicks his ass in Hadata. No one is allowed to beat Shinya. Rivalry commenced! _

_ We see Shinjiro and Minato, in split panels, slowly worsen with their illnesses, and attempt in their own ways to hide it from Minako. Shinjiro is successful － Minato is not. Minato’s friend Akinari often spends time with Minato and Minako, playing cards or other easy games, loudly winning a game of Uno. Minako continues to work relentlessly, her manager duties at Jun’s giving her less time to spend with Shinjiro. Naoto and Akihiko, in split panels, yell at Shinjiro to tell Minako about his illness. _

_ We see Ann, phone in hand, hesitate outside of a large apartment building, before steeling her nerves and going in. She jams her thumb on the button labeled TAKAMAKI and is let in, raps sharply on the door for apartment 3-F. The door opens, and a face appears － her face, surrounded by short hair. Her brother Ken. Ann holds up a small bag － cake from the expensive bakery in Ginza － and waits with baited breath － and after a moment, Ken steps aside and lets her in. He hugs her from behind, and the cake drops to the floor, and it doesn’t matter because she’s his sister and she’s here and she doesn’t hate him anymore. _

_ We see Yuuki at the Amamiya grave site, incense burning, talking to them like he used to when they were alive and they were  _ his _ surrogate parents and he needed them. He tells them about Ryuuji, about his insecurity, about his inferiority. He tells them about his date with Aika, about how he might like her, about how he might screw it up. He tells them how he misses them, and how Ren has changed, how all their kids have changed, but in a good way, and how he’s changed too, and they would like it if they saw it. _

_ We see Goro closing his laptop in irritation at a cafe, and Makoto freaking out about another murder victim. Neither of them seem to have slept much. They’re on lunch, just a quick one at the cafe by the police department, just to get some air away from the place. The waitress appears, and places a coffee Goro didn’t order in front of him. When he objects, she points across the room to a man with messy hair and says he ordered it for him, and Goro is surprised, looks thoughtfully at him while Makoto complains that no one ever buys her coffee. _

_ We see across panels as Ryuuji goes in for his surgery. It happens on a Sunday, because Shiho and Yuuki are both there too, with his sister and his mother, Ren, and Ann. His doctor pronounces it successful, a long, new scar down his leg, and Ryuuji begins the long, arduous journey of physical therapy, yelling sometimes, at times in tears, but always with his mother and Ann and Ren with him. His mother and Ann, who have been through this before, show Ren his exercises and tips, and Ren works with Ryuuji at home. The last panel shows the both of them, a brace peeking out from just under Ryuuji's shorts, running through the streets of Yongen-Jaya. _

_ We see Ren and a culmination of his life. Him as a child, eyes wide with wonder, and him with a young Yuuki in his Aporororo costume. Racing with Tatsuya on Waifu the motorcycle. His first crush, viewing him around the doorway to his elementary school classroom. His first kiss when he was twelve, before he got his glasses. The first time he got decked for being gay, and Yuuki coming to his rescue and getting hit in the face too. Futaba and Shinya coming home and his adventures in babysitting. Trying to learn English to impress the foreign boy, only to find out the foreign boy was from Portugal. His dalliances with Yoshihide in the police academy, and how he’d ended the relationship in fear of getting them both kicked out. How hard he’d cried at that, because he’d really loved that man. The first time he’d ever seen Ryuuji, how hard his heart had beat, their disastrous first date; and his mortification when telling Yuuki, Yuuki nearly suffocating himself laughing over it. How Ryuuji slowly took up more and more of his thoughts, until finally we are brought back to that last night after the funeral, after shedding the wet clothes and donning dry ones. Ren leaning close to his boyfriend’s ear, his breath tickling Ryuuji’s skin, his voice soft as his whispered, “Marry me?” _

_ We see Tatsuya and Jun from long ago, the star crossed lovers, the first day they met at Murakawa Shrine. It’s close to the end of the year, it’s bitterly cold, and Tatsuya is with his girlfriend on a double date. It’s raining, thick fat drops that soak through to the skin immediately. Tatsuya doesn’t have an umbrella. He doesn’t plan that far ahead. Jun does. They stare at each other through the people. Jun offers to share his umbrella, and they talk. They exchange names, and then Tatsuya is being pulled away, Jun staring forlornly after him. _

_ We see Jun alone, head down, eyes downcast, in Shinjuku. It’s a gloomy winter day. He’s suddenly run into by a group of rowdy boys and knocked to the ground, and a chorus of “shit, sorry!” and “are you okay?” and “fuck, Tatsuya, watch where you’re going!” surround him, and at Tatsuya’s name, he looks up, and it’s him, it’s the same boy from the shrine all those months ago. He’s holding out his hand to Jun, and it’s warm to the touch despite the cold, his cheeks are red, and Jun finds himself blurting, “Do you want to go out sometime?” because something tells him this boy would say yes, and even if he didn’t, even if this boy tries to beat the shit out of him, Jun would let him, because he is so fucking smitten with this boy that being touched by those fists would be enough. And another chorus goes up, this time of childish oooohs, and Tatsuya grins, that cocky grin, that flashy grin that from then on would always have Jun weak at the knees, and says, “Sure.” _

_ We see a large mansion, and a small scrawny boy being thrown out of it. Jun lands face first on the pavement, his hair in his eyes, his face red and angry, but his anger is nothing compared to his father’s. The man is large and imposing, towers over Jun, and screams at him from the house that he is now longer welcome in his home, he is no longer a Kashihara; that he had a fiancé and a fortune and a future and if he wants to throw it away for some  _ okama _ then go ahead, but get the fuck out and don’t come back. And Jun gets up and glares with hatred at his father, knowing his father expects him to come crawling back at the mention of all the things he will lose, so Jun does what he does best. He is defiant. He turns his back. And he walks away. His father’s jaw drops and his eyes bulge and he watches his only son walk out on his family for a piece of male ass. _

_ We see in a split panel that Tatsuya has fared no better. A policeman, like his father and grandfather and many of his family before him, he has been outed, and his superior is angry. More than angry, his superior is pissed. How could he have an okama on his police force. How could he have something so disrespectful representing Tokyo Met? Tatsuya would do the honorable thing and marry a woman, or he would be fired, and he was damn lucky to even be given the chance at marriage. Many men had been fired for less. Tatsuya stares his superior down. He says no. Where his dick goes has no bearing on his abilities as a police officer, he says. His superior feels differently and demands his badge. What he gets was Tatsuya’s fist. Tatsuya’s father keeps him out of jail but no more. His brother Katsuya tries to rile the departments to side with Tatsuya but at the threat of termination, Tatsuya persuades his brother to stand down. Flashes his trademark grin. He’ll be okay. _

_ We see Jun and Tatsuya at Murakawa Shrine, Tatsuya with the ghost of a split lip, Jun still in the clothes he wore the night before. Tatsuya is not a Suou. Jun is not a Kashihara. “If we are not who we were born, why not become new people,” Tatsuya asks him. “Why not take this journey together? I know this priest, and he will understand.” And Jun, sheltered Jun who would rather die than admit to a single vulnerable emotion, knows with certainty that this boy before him was the reason he’d been born. He’d come into this world to meet Tatsuya, and it didn’t matter how long or little they’d been together, or how quickly or late they did this. They would be together until they died. And Kannushi Iwamatsu proclaims them one before all gods, there in the rain in a hastily thrown together, highly untraditional ceremony, and Jun doesn’t remember the last time he’s cried so much. _

_ We see Jun and Tatsuya struggle, just the two of them against the world. Katsuya offers them his apartment for a time, but when times get hard, they leave. It’s too much to saddle Tatsuya’s brother with. But slowly, things improve. Tatsuya gets a job as a mechanic. He’s good with cars, always has been. Jun, poor little rich boy, learns the hard way about the real world. He bounces from job to job. He finally gets the hang of it, doing accounting for Tatsuya’s boss. They’re starting to save money. They’re starting to do well. They’re moving into their own apartment.  _

_ We see Ren come into their lives. A bouncing baby boy with a mop of black hair and two parents who don’t know what the fuck they’re doing. Katsuya, with a girlfriend now, is a doting uncle, loves his nephew Ren. Ren loves to steal Uncle Katsuya’s sunglasses. It’s just the three of them, Tatsuya and Jun and Ren, for a long time, as Tatsuya and Jun prosper, as Tatsuya is given the garage when his boss retires and renames it after his son’s childhood drawing. With Yuuki over all the time to play with Ren, it’s Tatsuya who pops the question of more children. He’s as good with children as he is with cars, and he loves taking the boys to the garage and having them help him with the cars, handing him tools or holding parts.  _

_ We see Futaba and Shinya, one after the other, and Ren is delighted with his siblings, loves being a big brother. Their family is complete. We see family vacations, Jun purchasing his flower shop, Futaba’s meltdowns and Jun’s frustration, Tatsuya’s complete ease with her and frustration with Shinya, Jun’s ease with young Shinya morph into frustration with teenage Shinya. We see Jun and Tatsuya exchange knowing glances when Ren walks home with a boy and comes inside, his face bright red. Jun taking Futaba to Akihabara to look at electronics and Tatsuya taking Shinya to the garage. Tatsuya reacting to the news of the shooting that claimed his brother’s life, and going alone to the funeral, unacknowledged by his family. Countless birthdays, parties, anniversaries, sad tears and happy. _

_ We see two young kids who gave up everything for each other morph into two adults with a family, happy and as in love as the day they got married. _

_ And then we see nothing. Everything is black.) _

  
  


**第1巻の終わり**

**END OF VOLUME I**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! When I first wrote C'est la Vie 5 in its current incarnation, I split it into five manga volumes. This one is the first, Aoi Hana (Blue Flower). I wrote it to vent some frustrations with my life, frustrations with how some of my favorite characters were handled in their series, and just for because. My boyfriend served to be my first audience, and each chapter helped his boredom in his hospital bed. 
> 
> I'll include another chapter beyond this, a glossary of characters. There are a lot here, I know, and many will be returning in book 2! Remember that this is a series, and not every plot thread will be tied up neatly at the end of one book. Some will come back in later books, and some will come up in the Missing Moments companion series. We're in this for the long haul. 
> 
> If you enjoyed Blue Flower, please drop a comment below!


	22. Character Glossary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I first wrote this and showed my boyfriend, he asked for a list of characters to help him keep them straight. I obliged, and in case any readers would like one as well I'm posting it here. There ARE SPOILERS for the story, if you're checking this as you go, but if you've reached the Epilogue and then clicked here, you're safe. There are no spoilers for book 2 or Missing Moments.
> 
> I've listed the characters in order of appearance.

**THE CAST OF C'EST LA VIE 5**

**BOOK ONE: AOI HANA**

**雨宮蓮** **Amamiya Ren**

_POV Character_

Profession: Private Investigator for Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Family: Adopted by Amamiya Tatsuya and Jun (deceased). Younger sister Futaba and younger brother Shinya. Uncle Katsuya Suou (deceased).

Partner: Lives with Ryuuji Sakamoto

NOTES: Ren is quiet and introspective, sarcastic, and quick witted. He is a very composed individual who does not let his emotions show easily. He would rather listen than talk. Due to the large age gap between him and Futaba and Shinya, he became a natural leader at a young age, something he carried into his personal relationships. Ren manages to make time for everyone, no matter how impossible it may seem. Was closest to Jun out of the Amamiya children, and the only one of them to study flower language and work at Jun’s - it was his and Yuuki’s first job. Joined the police force to have a connection to Tatsuya’s family, who have all been cops. Has known Mishima Yuuki since elementary school, and met Ryuuji through him. Ren is gay. He struggles with being an openly gay man in a gay relationship, especially since he is the child of two gay men, and does not talk about his relationship at work the way his coworkers do with theirs.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**坂本竜司 Sakamoto Ryuuji**

_POV Character_

Profession: High School Track Coach and PE Teacher at Kaibara High School

Family: Unnamed father (deceased). Unnamed mother. Older sister Ichiko.

Partner: Lives with Ren Amamiya

NOTES: Ryuuji is loud and bold and brash. He is extremely loyal and kind-hearted and always puts others first. Ryuuji grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father and as he got older, many times put himself between his father and mother. His father died when he was ten and his sister fourteen, and the Sakamotos incurred a lot of negative gossip for not having a wake or proper funeral and instead only paying for the cremation. His family is very close-knit as a result of the children’s childhood, and Ryuuji in particular is extremely close to his mother. Ryuuji met Ann Takamaki after transferring to a new middle school. He has been working since he was thirteen. At sixteen he broke his femur during track practice, in a situation that several people insist the coach could have prevented. His mother worked three jobs to keep the family afloat during this time, and Ann helped keep his morale and grades up. Became a track coach to do for kids what he feels his coach should have done for him. Set Ann up with Shiho because “you need someone to mellow you out,” and was actually surprised it worked out. Ryuuji is gay and doesn't especially care who knows it.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**鳴上悠 Narukami Yu**

Profession: Police Detective at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Family: Husband and one daughter

Partner: Narukami Yosuke

NOTES: Yu is Ren's senpai at work and his boss. The two have a close relationship, which is why Yu takes it upon himself to call Ren after his fathers' accident. He is the only _openly_ non-heterosexual officer in Ren's unit (Yu is bisexual); and keeps a photo of his husband and daughter on his desk. Yu is originally from the country.

_Fandom: Persona 4_

**松田 Matsuda**

Profession: Police Officer

NOTES: Matsuda is the first officer on the scene of the Amamiyas' accident.

_Fandom: Death Note_

**佐藤真 Sato** **Makoto**

Profession: Police Commissioner at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

Family: Grandfather (deceased), Father (deceased), Mother

NOTES: Makoto is the Commissioner for Tokyo Met, the fourth highest position in their district. Due to her superiors occupying another building and often being at meetings with the other districts, Makoto’s word is the de facto law in the district, and the pressure is immense. On the outside she is a cool, calm, and collected city official, capable of speaking to the public about the mysterious murders happening around the city. To her subordinates, Makoto is unyielding steel, furious that not a single department has found a trace of this murderer. Her anger is enough to make the most seasoned officer cower in their seat. In private, Makoto is a mess. Stressed out, nervous, and prone to anxiety and panic attacks, Makoto feels she is in way over her head with this ghost of a killer, with the gangs of Tokyo, with her life. She is very close friends with Goro and very concerned about her employees.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**雨宮淳 Amamiya** **Jun**

Birthname: Kashihara Jun 橿原淳

Profession: Owner of Jun’s

Family: Father of Ren, Futaba, and Shinya Amamiya; Father Kashihara Nobutoshi, one sister. Brother-in-law Katsuya Suou.

Employees: Sawai Usagi, Arisato Minako, Ochi Chieko

Partner: Amamiya Tatsuya

NOTES: Only appearing in flashbacks, Jun died in a car crash at the beginning of the story. While introverted to strangers, he was shown to be a very warm and caring individual, dispensing advice not only to his children but to such an extent with his employees, and children’s friends and partners, that many of them considered him a father figure. While emotionally closest to his oldest child Ren, Jun was probably the most bonded with his youngest child Shinya, who he thought most resembled him. In his youth, Jun was rebellious, angry, and a delinquent, and he could still be quite deviant as an adult. Born into the prestigious, wealthy Kashihara family, Jun’s homosexuality was ignored within the family until it wasn’t able to be, and he was finally disowned when he refused to marry a woman and instead ran off with dashing young police detective Suou Tatsuya. He never regretted his decision, despite their first few years being extremely rough, near homeless and broke, and was able to build a respectable business, family, and life with Tatsuya.

_Fandom: Persona 2_

**雨宮達哉 Amamiya Tatsuya**

Birthname: Suou Tatsuya 周防達哉

Profession: Former Homicide Detective; Mechanic, Owner of Aporo Garage

Family: Father of Ren, Futaba, and Shinya Amamiya; older brother Katsuya Suou (deceased)

Employees: Ogata Haruka and Uotani

Partner: Amamiya Jun

NOTES: Only appearing in flashbacks, Tatsuya Amamiya was killed in a car crash at the beginning of the story. Tatsuya was a self confident and proud man, especially around motorcycles and engines of all types, and he was a very caring individual. Tatsuya was also described as an awkward nerd by Jun on numerous occasions, something he had carried with him since his middle school growth spurt. Born Suou Tatsuya, he, like the majority of his family, attended the police academy upon graduating high school, and was immediately accepted into a well-paying position directly into the Homicide Department by recommendation of his father (a prosecutor) and older brother (an Arson detective). He met Jun by chance on a date with his then girlfriend, and after that relationship ended said yes to Jun’s immediate asking him out. Had a habit of flicking open and closed a Zippo lighter, a gift from Jun, long after he’d quit smoking. Tatsuya was best with the children when they were younger, and he was the best with Futaba, who sometimes exasperated Jun. Though he was called by the “stronger” name of Tousan by his kids, he was the softer of the two parents, often indulging his children. Tatsuya was bisexual. In retaliation for destroying his family and corrupting his only son, Jun’s father saw to it that Tatsuya was fired from Tokyo Met and unable to obtain another job as a police officer, something not very difficult to achieve due to the prejudice against homosexuality. Was disowned by his own family for his relationship with Jun, and for a long time, their only supporter was his older brother Katsuya. Proposed they both take the name Amamiya in lieu of getting married (as gay married was illegal), using the characters “rain” and “temple” - symbolizing how they’d first met.

 _Fandom: Persona_ 2

**雨宮双葉 Amamiya Futaba**

_POV Character_

Profession: Student at Kaibara High School; Part time employee at an Akihabara electronics store

Family: Adopted by Amamiya Tatsuya and Jun (deceased). Older brother Ren, younger brother Shinya. Uncle Katsuya Suou (deceased).

NOTES: Futaba is very quiet and withdrawn around strangers and prone to depression. It’s not unheard of for her to contain herself in her room for days or weeks at a time. However Futaba is also extremely passionate about her hobbies, which include gaming, anything with electronics, and hacking (her fathers did not know about the hacking and she was sure they would not approve). Sometimes in her obsession she would also remain in her room. She was closest to Tatsuya, who she felt got her, as he was the one who created her coping mechanism of seeing the world and herself as a video game and computer. Futaba is somewhere on the spectrum and this created a lot of difficulty when she was a child. She was adopted as a toddler and was cited as “difficult,” and she was. She is very close to Shinya, as they are close in age and share many of the same interests and hobbies, and she idolizes Ren. Affected the worst by their parents’ deaths. She likes to give her friends and family silly nicknames.

 _Fandom: Persona_ _5_

**雨宮信也 **Amamiya** **Shinya****

_POV Character_

Profession: Student; Part time employee at Green Drug Store

Family: Adopted by Amamiya Tatsuya and Jun (deceased). Older brother Ren, older sister Futaba. Uncle Katsuya Suou (deceased).

NOTES: Shinya is a surly and impatient teenager who often exploited being the baby of the family to get what he wants. He is reluctant to rely on others, a trait he shares with his brother. A running joke in the family was that Shinya was Jun’s biological child, as not only did they look alike, but Shinya was very much like Jun in personality even when he was small. Shinya was often at odds with Jun, who was the disciplinarian, and preferred Tatsuya, who he saw as the fun parent. He developed an early love of motorcycles and cars from Tatsuya and spent much of his childhood in Aporo Garage with his tousan. Much like Futaba can dismantle and rebuild a computer, Shinya can dismantle and rebuild an engine. He is very close to Futaba, as they are close in age and have similar hobbies, and he seems to understand her quirks better than anyone else. It’s Shinya who helps ease Futaba back into normal life after their parents’ deaths. Shinya is also a huge gamer, though he prefers arcade games, and is friendly with most arcade staff around Tokyo. He entertains dreams of being a professional gamer. He greatly dislikes Ryuuji, who he thinks is stupid. Shinya carries an immense amount of guilt related to his fathers' deaths, and does not like to talk about his feelings.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**明智吾郎 Akechi Goro**

_POV Character_

Profession: Police Detective at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, Police Liaison to the Media

NOTES: Goro Akechi is a complex man. On the outside, he is polite and mild mannered, a little awkward but not terribly so, and very self-contained. He is desperately lonely, and not well adjusted in the way of making friends. He cherishes his friendships with Ren and Makoto, and is so close to Makoto that it’s alienated him from his coworkers. 

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**鈴井志帆 Suzui Shiho**

Profession: High School Volleyball Coach and PE Teacher at Kaibara High School

Partner: Takamaki Ann

NOTES: Shiho is a sweet and giggly girl who’s played sports her entire life. She went to university on a sports scholarship, and decided to become a high school coach in memory of everything her own coaches had done for her. She does have a tragic spot in her past, which she does not like to talk about, in which she was sexually assaulted and subsequently tried to committ suicide before the start of the story; she still struggles with nightmares of both the assault and the suicide attempt, and has PTSD over the assault. Shiho is extremely kind and understanding, and she often listens to Yuuki and Ryuuji when they need to talk and offers advice. She is often Ryuuji’s confidant especially while Ren is grieving for his parents and adjusting to his siblings living with them. Ryuuji set Shiho and Ann up and to his surprise they clicked very well. Shiho is a lesbian.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**三島由輝 Mishima Yuuki**

_POV Character_

Profession: High School Baseball Coach and PE Teacher at Kaibara High School

Family: Parents

NOTES: Yuuki is Ren’s oldest friend, having known each other since babyhood. He is a sweet and curious person with a hidden devious side. Yuuki has always had an inferiority complex, made worse by his friendship with Ren - he grew up with parents who should have divorced, who oftentimes ignored him because they were fighting, while seeing Ren’s parents in love, adoring their children and showered them with affection, and at times felt unwanted and unloved. To make matters worse, he has often been unlucky in love, and has at times thought he’ll die alone. Yuuki is amateur computer programmer and hacker, and he is the only one of Ren’s friends who has ever been able to make a connection to Futaba, who calls him Yuuki-kichi. Set Ren up with Ryuuji after noticing, when Ren met up with him after work, how Ren looked at him. Yuuki sees a therapist for his anxiety, something uncommon in Japan. 

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**Ryuuji's Mother**

Family: Husband (deceased); Daughter Ichiko, son Ryuuji

NOTES: Mrs Sakamoto is a soft, warm-hearted woman who is very close with her children, especially her son. The victim of an abusive and alcoholic husband, she was still devastated when he died, though ultimately she realized that she was better off. Worked three jobs as a single mother. Has always staunchly supported Ryuuji and his lifestyle, and has happily welcome every boyfriend he's ever had. Adores Ren and worries for him, though she is concerned she may be overstepping her boundaries after his parents pass. Slightly exasperated with her daughter, who she feels is wasting her talent while giving in to the same vices that plagued her father.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**日下衛 Kusaka Mamoru**

Profession: Japanese Language Teacher at Kaibara High School

NOTES: Kusaka-sensei is the homeroom teacher of Futaba and Sohma Hatsuharu as well as the Japanese teacher. She has a terrible memory. Her name is a nod to her source series.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (live action) (Mamoru Chiba, Hina Kusaka)_

**The Mizunos**

NOTES: Neighbors of the Amamiyas in Kichijoji. 

_Fandom: Sailor Moon_

**有里美知留 Arisato Minako**

_POV Character_

Profession: Jun’s Clerk and Manager, Hospital Janitor

Family: Parents (deceased), one uncle, younger brother Minato

Partner: Aragaki Shinjiro

NOTES: Minako is an upbeat and positive women who will make time for anything and anyone. She always has a smile on her face, can make friends with anyone, and always has a kind word to say about people. Inside, however, Minako is wracked with fear of abandonment, loneliness, and depression. Her parents’ untimely deaths and the car crash that caused it gave her lifelong trauma, and once her brother contracted his fatal illness (and especially once he was admitted as a permanent patient to the hospital), the fear came back tenfold, that she was about to lose her only family. Minako surrounds herself with strong relationships to keep the fear away, and it works for a time, but the only real thing that helps is her relationship with Shinjiro. 

_Fandom: Persona 3 Portable_

**沢井兎 Sawai Usagi**

Profession: Jun’s Clerk

NOTES: Usagi is extremely friendly and informal, using informal language with nearly everyone and first names as soon as she learns them. To her, everyone is friend. She is also very inclusive -- Usagi does not like to see people left out and will make every effort to bring them into conversation or the group. Her best friend since childhood, Naru, is often exasperated with her, and calls her immature, because Usagi still wears the same hairstyle she had as a kid, she’s terrible with money, and she’s still very selfish and childish. An example she often uses to illustrate her point is that Usagi writes her name in hiragana rather than kanji because “kanji is hard” and often draws a rabbit head next to it. Usagi is also very emotional and kind.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (live action) (Usagi Tsukino)_

**赤井軟玉璐 Akai Nefuro**

Profession: Clerk at Crown Karaoke and Games

Family: Younger sister, father, stepmother

NOTES: Nefuro is the bad tempered attendant at Crown Karaoke in Azaba-Juuban. He is quick to anger when something is broken and is a fan of percussive maintenance. He is very intelligent though, and eager to please, though easily discouraged. He is very good at shooter games and becomes friendly with Shinya, even giving Shinya his employee discount, solely because Shinya was the first person to beat all of his high scores. Nefuro at first seems to be a bad influence on Shinya, giving him cigarettes and allowing him to drink, but Nefuro knows that Shinya is just acting out and will resort to dangerous, illegal means to do so if left unchecked. He believes he is providing Shinya with a safer alternative, because he knows Shinya will do these things regardless. Nefuro used to be a delinquent at Shinya’s age, which is the reason he tries so hard to go straight now. When his sister was born, he wasn’t allowed to see her. He had to shape up quickly before he got in real trouble with real gangs, and he did, though he still has vices of smoking and drinking and occasionally gambling. He does not like his stepmother but he cares for his sister deeply, and sees a lot of himself in Shinya, and would do anything for either of them (though would never admit it to either of them). He can't stand his manager Jiang Xiaoyou and dislikes Chinese people.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (live action) (Nephrite)_

**高巻杏 Takamaki Ann**

_POV Character_

Profession: Model

Family: Parents, twin brother Ken

Partner: Suzui Shiho

NOTES: Ann is cheerful and bubbly and deeply emotional. Ann’s parents are rich and involved in the fashion industry and as a result were always traveling; Ann and her brother Ken were raised by nannies. Ann keeps in touch with her childhood nanny, who she feels is more of a mother to her than her own mother, and is estranged from her parents. Ann and Ryuuji met on her first day of middle school. Ryuuji had just transferred after his father’s death and knew how lonely being the new kid was, and reached out to her. Ann, who didn’t quite fit in due to her strange name and slightly European features (her grandmother was Finnish, and she, Ken, and their father all have names that are both Japanese and Finnish), gladly accepted his friendship. Both got a lot of flack during their awkward teen years for having a best friend of the opposite sex, and they will sometimes joke that that’s why they’re both homosexual. Ann is also very close to Ryuuji’s mother, having spent many an afternoon and night at his house, and his mother considers Ann to be her second daughter. Ann is estranged from her parents and brother, but is more willing to work on her relationship with Ken.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**越智奈月 Ochi Naru**

Profession: Jun’s Clerk

Family: Parents, younger sister

NOTES: Naru, perhaps due to having Usagi as her best friend, is a very take charge person. She is very perceptive and kind hearted, and very invested in people and things. She is often exasperated with Usagi, who she thinks should be a proper adult at their age, and is sometimes as fed up with Usagi as she is with her younger sister. Naru loves to sing and can often be found after work at Crown Karaoke. Naru and Minako have the opening and closing duties at Jun’s, though Naru is envious that Minako is a keyholder and has access to the safe and fills the register every morning. Naru is of Filipino descent and has tanned skin.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (live action) (Naru Osaka)_

**戸田尚斗 Toda Naoto**

Profession: Owner of the Stray Sheep Bar

Family: Younger brother

Employees: Shinjiro Aragaki, Shion Azama, Eikichi Mishina

NOTES: Naoto is the somewhat eccentric owner of the Stray Sheep. He’s extremely open-minded, as evidenced by the fact that, when his bar struggled to stay afloat in the red light district, he decided to cross dress to attract customers. Resourceful as well, because this made use of the beautiful collection of kimonos his grandmother left behind when she passed, unable to be worn as his father had only brothers and only sons. His father finds this odd but is all about doing anything to make money, and his mother taught him herself how to apply makeup and dress himself in women’s kimonos. What started as a gimmick became a complete persona, Naoko-san 直子さん, which Naoto keeps up from the second he walks into the bar until the moment the last patron leaves. As Naoko he is flirty and giggly, while also playing coy with grabby men, and is not afraid to bodily remove such men from his bar. He is also exceedingly kind, and has demonstrated this several times: with Shion (see Shion’s entry) and Shinjiro. Naoto believes in second chances, and that everyone deserves the opportunity to grow. He is not naive, nor stupid, and would never endanger himself or others to help a person; but he has been know to use his second apartment, his own clothes, and his own money for the benefit of another person.

_Fandom: Persona 4 (last name from Death Note, Naoko spelling from Sailor Moon)_

**三科栄吉 Mishina Eikichi**

Profession: Bartender at the Stray Sheep, Musician

NOTES: Eikichi is loud, dramatic, and a flirt, and he amps these traits up ten times when he is performing. During the week he bartends at the Stray Sheep, flirting shamelessly with both sexes. He means every compliment, as he doesn't believe in lying to make people happy. On Fridays and Saturdays, Eikichi dyes his hair blue, applies a generous amount of makeup in visual kei style, and performs as Michel, the lead guitarist and singer of the band Gas Chamber at Club Sevens in Roppongi. Virtually unrecognizable as Michel, he enjoys relative anonymity during the week, though the occasional fan does spot him, as Gas Chamber has a rabid cult following. Eikichi’s passion for the alternative comes from his strict and traditional father, who rallied so hard against such things it pushed Eikichi into them. Eikichi is a freewheeling bisexual. 

_Fandom: Persona 2_

**安座間詩音 Azama Shion**

Profession: Waitress at the Stray Sheep

Family: Parents and younger brother (all estranged)

NOTES: Shion is a caring and kind individual who takes no shit from anyone. She oftentimes shuts down Eikichi’s flirting in a deadpan manner if she feels he’s going too far, but she herself is also quite flirty with men, wearing short skirts and cleavage-baring shirts to work. She gossips with the women who come in, and she is so appreciated by the regulars that she’s earned the affectionate moniker Oneesan (older sister) - Minako calls her Oneechan. Shion is the reason the Stray Sheep became the LGBTQ safe haven it is today, as she herself is transgender. Because of her, the Stray Sheep went from being a struggling bar with a quirky hostess to being one of the only openly LGBTQ bars in Shibuya. She worked there before she transitioned and after losing her second job post-transition, was offered a full time position at the Stray Sheep. Shion herself is extremely feminine and girly, and was extremely pleased when Shinjiro began seeing Minako because she finally had another girl to talk to. She’s had a string of unsuccessful, short relationships since transitioning, mostly due to her own fear of their reaction. The clothes she brought to Shinjiro after he was found by Naoto were her own, pre-transition.

_Fandom: Catherine (last name from live action Sailor Moon, first name from Kingdom Hearts) (Erica)_

**荒垣真次郎 Aragaki Shinjiro**

_POV Character_

Profession: Cook at the Stray Sheep

Family: Orphan. Extremely close to foster brother Akihiko Sanada

Partner: Minako Arisato

NOTES: Shinjiro is a quiet and withdrawn man, usually in the background with his hands in his pockets, observing, and much of that comes from the childhood spent at an overcrowded children’s home. He formed a close bond with another boy there, Akihiko, which continues to this day, and the two call each other brothers. Shinjiro, due to the state of Japan’s foster system, fell through the cracks, and at fifteen was picked up by the Shiryō Syndicate*, a powerful gang operating all over Tokyo. Akihiko tried to keep Shinjiro out of trouble, but Shiryō promised him a better life and Shinjiro, already tired of living at fifteen, took it. He ran with them for fifteen years, keeping sporadic correspondence with Akihiko, until his past caught up with him, his conscience caught up with him, and Akihiko’s words made him reconsider his life and how much he’d missed by choosing the Shiryō. He left, and was nearly killed, until he was found by Naoto, who took him in out of the kindness of his heart, solely because he didn’t think a man deserved to die on the street, asking in return only that Shinjiro never lie to him. Shortly after, he chanced upon a very drunk Minako, lost on her way to the subway on one of the worst nights of her life. Minako found him the day after to thank him, and Shinjiro was smitten. He believes Naoto, Akihiko, and Minako keep him on the right path. Outside of Shiryō, Shinjiro is a kind and considerate person, gentle, and an animal lover.

*A Note About the Shiryō Syndicate: Shiryō is the term for the souls of the dead, and one of their rallying cries is “We are Shiryō! What is dead can never die!” This is used to force members into dangerous situations, and Shiryō has a high mortality rate.

_Fandom: Persona 3_

**タダキ千 Tadakichi**

Owner: Aragaki Shinjiro

NOTES: Shinjiro calls Tadakichi a protective spirit. Minako says in the west they would call him a guardian angel. Tadakichi is a shiba inu who appeared on Shinjiro’s first night alone in his own apartment in Yongen-Jaya. Shinjiro had previously been living in the apartment above the Stray Sheep, and then with Naoto. Still being on the Shiryō shitlist, Shinjiro was concerned he would be murdered for leaving, or at the very least attacked, in Yongen-Jaya alone. Tadakichi, then a stray, gave Shinjiro a fright, darting out from an alley and making a lot of noise;. he followed Shinjiro to the apartment building, and whined when Shinjiro shut the door on him. The next morning, he was waiting at the building’s door. He would walk Shinjiro to the train station and be waiting for him at the station to walk him home. After a week, Shinjiro relented, and Tadakichi trotted inside Shinjiro’s apartment and made himself comfortable. Tadakichi is generally found within the vicinity of Shinjiro, but has been known to leave if Shinjiro is somewhere safe, such as the Stray Sheep. He is even allowed inside the Stray Sheep, but he is not allowed anywhere near the food prep.

_Fandom: Persona 3 (Koromaru), Azumanga Daioh (Mr. Tadakichi)_

Author's Note: The animals in this story are all representative of a part of Japanese mythology, except for Tadakichi. Tadakichi is based on the story of Hachiko (who also inspired the characters of Koromaru and Mr. Tadakichi).

**有里湊 Arisato Minato**

Family: Parents (deceased), one uncle, older sister Minako Arisato

NOTES: According to Minako, before the crash that killed their parents, Minato was a happy and loud child. After the crash, he became quiet and withdrawn, and once he became sick and was admitted as a permanent resident to the hospital, he because gloomy and pessimistic. Minato loves music like his sister, and enjoys listening to playlists she carefully arranges for him. He is grateful that Minako took a second job as a janitor at his hospital, because it means he can see her every day, but at the same time, he wishes she hadn’t. Her optimism depresses him, because he knows what he has is fatal, he knows he will die, and he believes Minako to be firmly in denial. 

_Fandom: Persona 3_

**Ogata Haruka**

Profession: Mechanic at Aporo Garage

Partner: Katsuki Michiru

NOTES: Haruka was the employee of Amamiya Tatsuya and a family friend. She is the senior mechanic at the shop.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (Haruka Tenoh)_

**魚谷雅史 Uotani Masashi**

Profession: Mechanic at Aporo Garage

Family: One daughter

NOTES: Uotani is a recovering alcoholic.

_Fandom: Fruits Basket_

**鳴上陽介 Narukami Yosuke**

Family: Husband and one daughter

Partner: Narukami Yu

NOTES: Attended the Amamiyas' funeral.

_Fandom: Persona 4_

**The Mishimas**

NOTES: Yuuki's parents. They do not have a good relationship with each other and Yuuki firmly believes they should divorce.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**神谷研一 Kamiya Kenichi**

Profession: Private Consultant for Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

NOTES: Kenichi Kamiya was a child prodigy. He is a member of MENSA and was considered for several important government official positions before deciding to become a private consultant. He is also, according to his colleagues, probably batshit insane. Kenichi is blunt bordering on rude and very rarely censors his words. He absolutely dislikes Goro Akechi and has had him investigated several times, even putting Goro’s name forth as a possible suspect for several crimes. He is obsessively clean, spending hours in his office cleaning before even considering to work, yet he always looks like he just rolled out of bed. 

_Fandom: Death Note (L)_

Author's Note: Kamiya is an inside joke between myself and my boyfriend, because the entire time through Persona 5, I called Goro Light Yagami. So naturally, Light's enemy L had to be in this story.

**足立本透 Adachi Tohru**

Profession: Homicide Detective at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department 

NOTES: Can’t stand Kamiya. 

_Fandom: Persona 4_

Author's Note: Tohru is a unisex name, and my Adachi is female due to a very nice drawing I one saw of a female Adachi. She is the only female cop in Ren and Goro's unit.

**The Murderer**

NOTES: A mysterious serial killer striking Tokyo and causing headaches for the Homicide Department. As of the end of Aoi Hana, they have killed six people. The police have no leads and few clues, save that every victim has tetrodotoxin in their system. 

**皆月 Minazuki**

Profession: Homicide Detective at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

NOTES: Member of Ren and Goro's unit. Good friends with Kurogami; lives for making dirty jokes.

_Fandom: Persona 4 (Sho Minazuki)_

**黒神 Kurogami**

Profession: Homicide Detective at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

NOTES: Member of Ren and Goro's unit. Good friends with Minazuki. Is convinced Goro got his job by fucking Makoto.

_Fandom: Persona 4 Detective Naoto_

**巻上和也 Makigami Kazuya**

Profession: Gang leader

Family: Sister

NOTES: Terrible temper. New boss of the Shiryō Syndicate.

_Fandom: Persona 5 The Day Breakers_

**巻上景子 Makigami Keiko**

Profession: Gang member

Family: Brother

NOTES: "The female Makigami." A competent hacker.

_Fandom: None (completely original character)_

**模木 Mogi**

Profession: Head of Vice at Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department

NOTES: Self-serving. Dislikes Makoto for getting the Police Commissioner position.

_Fandom: Death Note_

**弥恵梨香 Amane Erika**

Profession: Former idol; Personal Secretary to the Commissioner

Family: One sister Hinako

NOTES: Seems to have a crush on Goro.

_Fandom: Death Note_

Author's Note: Erika is another in-joke based on my calling Goro Light Yagami. Erika is also one of the original C'est la Vie characters from my college days.

**周防克哉 Suou Katsuya**

Profession: Arson Detective

Family: Younger brother Amamiya Tatsuya (deceased), brother-in-law Amamiya Jun (deceased); nephews Ren and Shinya, niece Futaba

NOTES: Noted to be the only open supporter of Tatsuya’s relationship with Jun and nearly lost his job over it. Killed on duty.

_Fandom: Persona 2_

**黒木有紗 Kuroki Arisa**

Profession: Model and Pop Idol

NOTES: Arisa is bubbly, focused, and sweet. She works with Ann.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (live action) (Mio Kuroki)_

**御寺美香 Odera Mika**

Profession: Model

NOTES: Can be snobby and stuck up. Has a fear of abandonment. She works with Ann.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

**皆口菅生 Minaguchi Sugao "Manager"**

Profession: Talent Agent and Manager at Hoshi Talent

Employees: Takamaki Ann, Odera Mika, Kuroki Arisa

NOTES: Minaguchi is obsessed with his work and his models, always pushing for 110%. He is effeminate and flamboyant, as well as flighty and shallow; but he has very good business sense and fights for "his girls" to get premium modeling gigs. 

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (live action) (Sugao Saitou)_

**小松成志 Komatsu Narushi**

Profession: Photographer for Hoshi Talent

NOTES: Komatsu is Minaguchi's long suffering photographer.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (original character within the series)_

**勝生美知留** **Katsuki Michiru**

Profession: Classical Violinist

Partner: Haruka Ogata

NOTES: A celebrity in the music world and a crush of Yuuki's. She and Haruka are married and her legal surname is Ogata.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon (Michiru Kaioh)_

**腾唐静 Teng Tangjing "Jing"**

Profession: Former Model; Lawyer

NOTES: Used modeling to put herself through law school. Good friends with Mika. Was recommended to Ren for legal help.

_Fandom: Boys Over Flowers (2019 Meteor Garden)_

**高巻乾 Takamaki Ken**

Family: Parents, twin sister Ann Takamaki

NOTES: Ken has always been aloof and serious, something his nanny says is a product of his parents never having been around. He is tightly wound and bottled up and his nanny was always afraid one day he would snap. He and Ann look extraordinarily alike, despite being fraternal, which makes their estrangement all the more painful for the both of them. Ken is the more willing of the two to end their estrangement, just as he was with their parents, but respects that Ann feels how she feels. He does miss his sister, and wishes she would come around and just be reasonable.

_Fandom: Persona 5 (original character in the series)_

**The Takamakis**

Profession: Fashion Designers; Creators of the MINNA Brand 

NOTES: Ann and Ken's parents. Mr Takamaki is Finnish and his wife is Japanese. They were absent parents while their children grew up, traveling the world for fashion shows. Mr Takamaki speaks Finnish to his children and his wife speaks English. They believe they have a fine relationship with their children and that Ann is ungrateful.

_Fandom: Persona 5 (original characters in the series)_

**福圓光 Fukuen Hikari**

Profession: Part time employee at an Akihabara electronics store

NOTES: One of Futaba's friends. Futaba has Hikari in her phone as LIGHT OF MY LIFE because “Hikari” means “light.” 

_Fandom: Persona Q2_

**北川祏介 Kitagawa Yusuke**

Profession: Artist

Family: Mother (deceased)

NOTES: Futaba calls him Yuzu Lemon. 

_Fandom: Persona 5_

Author's Note: In Persona 5, Kitagawa is written 喜多川. I've changed the kanji of his name to make him related to a character in this series.

**神木秋成 Kamiki Akinari**

NOTES: Another terminally ill patient; friend of Minato's.

_Fandom: Persona 3_

**育子さん Ikuko-san**

Profession: Hospital janitor; unnamed second job

NOTES: Stern and opinionated woman who works with Minako. Her name comes from Sailor Moon but Ikuko-san is an original character.

_Fandom: None_

**The Shibue Family**

NOTES: Ikuko-san's neighbors who she dislikes.

_Fandom: None_

**福山滋 Fukuyama Shigeru**

Profession: Student at Kaibara High School

NOTES: A problem child who constantly picks on other students. Noted to be homophobic and a bully. The bane of Hatsuharu's and Ryuuji's existence.

_Fandom: Persona 5_

Author's Notes: Fukuyama is the incarnation of what Shujin thought the P5 protagonist was. He is a delinquent, a bully, a thief, etc.

**園村博士 Sonomura-hakase**

Profession: Therapist at Kageyama Outpatient Hospital

NOTES: Yuuki's therapist. She studied psychology abroad and firmly believes in the Western way method of counseling (aka talking it out) vs just medicating patients.

_Fandom: Persona 1, Persona 2_

**真田明彦 Sanada Akihiko**

Profession: Former police officer; currently professional trainer

Family: Foster brother Shinjiro Aragaki

Partner: Sanada Mitsuru

NOTES: Akihiko has known Shinjiro since they were four years old and growing up in the same orphanage. Like Shinjiro, Akihiko has a temper and was upset about his situation. He’d lost his parents in a fire and had no other family. He took it out on other kids and was always in trouble. Unlike Shinjiro, he channeled this anger into sports as he got older, and tried to find joy in little things. When the schoolyard bullies became the neighborhood gangs, and the neighborhood gangs became the city gangs, Akihiko stayed far away, and tried to keep Shinjiro far away. He beat himself up for years for not trying harder to keep Shinjiro in school, for not fighting those kids who were scouting people like them for their wars. When he graduated high school, he moved to the inner city of Tokyo and joined the police academy, believing it the only way to find his friend and bring him home. If he could get to Shinjiro, he could keep him safe. In the fifteen years Shinjiro ran wild, Akihiko built a fine reputation as a captain. He managed a very sporadic correspondence with his friend, always pleading with him to leave the gang. He met an heiress after rescuing her from a kidnapping, and married her, and it was his wedding that triggered Shinjiro’s need to get away from Shiryo. The day he learned Shinjiro had quit, the day he knew without a doubt Shinjiro was safe, he walked into work, left his badge and his gun, and quit the force, to the chagrin of his wife.

_Fandom: Persona 3_

**真田美鶴 Sanada Mitsuru**

Partner: Sanada Akihiko

NOTES: Akihiko's wife. She is a high society woman and dislikes Shinjiro for his gang past.

_Fandom: Persona 3_

**橿原喜稔 Kashihara Nobutoshi**

Profession: CEO of Kashihara Group, Owner of KSG Electro

Family: One daughter, Amamiya Jun (disowned); grandchildren Ren, Shinya, and Futaba (estranged)

NOTES: Kashihara is Jun's father and the grandfather of the Amamiya children. He is one of the richest men in Japan, hailing from old money, and is extremely proud and haughty. He speaks extremely formally. He is also extremely homophobic; he threw his son out and disowned him after learning Jun was gay, and then proceeded to ruin Tatsuya's career. He has no contact with his grandchildren and as far as he's concerned, he has no son, only one daughter. The Kashiharas have a family tomb at Fushima Shrine.

_Fandom: Persona 2 (Akinari Kashihara)_

**蒋小优 Jiang Xiaoyou**

Profession: College Student; Manager of Crown Karaoke and Games

NOTES: Nefuro despises Xiaoyou, believing her to play favorites and skew the schedule to give her friends more hours. She's also Chinese, which Nefuro also doesn't like.

_Fandom: Boys Over Flowers (2019 Meteor Garden)_

**古畑宇奈月 Furuhata Unazuki**

Profession: Clerk at Crown Karaoke and Games

NOTES: Unazuki is one of the few people who can stand up to Nefuro’s shit and dish it right back out. Described by Shinya as a real woman, Unazuki is model gorgeous and knows it, wearing form fitting clothes, short skirts even in winter, and makeup that accentuates her full lips. She likes to experiment with her hair and nails, and while she may say a flirty thing or two, she strictly does not flirt with customers at work. Is unaware that Shinya is head over heels for her, and highly aware that Nefuro can’t stand Xiaoyou, something she takes advantage of whenever she can.

_Fandom: Sailor Moon_

**青井詩織 Aoi Shiori**

Profession: Clerk at Crown Karaoke and Games

NOTE: Nefuro is bitter because Shiori's hours weren't cut.

_Fandom: Death Note (live action)_

**坂本一子 Sakamoto Ichiko**

Profession: Journalist

Family: Unnamed mother. Unnamed father (deceased). Brother Ryuuji.

NOTE: Ryuuji's older sister by four years. Unlike Ryuuji, who has abstained from alcohol because of their father, Ichiko is a mild alcoholic. She cares immensely for her little brother, but Ryuuji finds her tiring.

_Fandom: Persona 5 (Ichiko Ohya)_

**喜英くん Yoshihide-kun**

Profession: Police Officer

NOTE: Ren's ex-boyfriend. They met at the police academy.

_Fandom: Persona 5 The Stage_

**国分寺愛分 Kokubunji Aika**

Profession: Waitress at Cafe Leblanc

Family: Father, three brothers

NOTES: On familiar enough terms with Yuuki and Ren to call them by their first names. Yuuki has had a crush on her since he moved to Yongen-Jaya.

_Fandom: Persona 4_

**草摩溌春 Sohma Hatsuharu "Hatsu"**

Profession: Student at Kaibara High School

Family: Father, mother (deceased), younger brother Momiji

NOTES: Classmate of Futaba’s. Not very familiar with her prior to her fathers’ deaths, and spent most of his time in school getting in trouble for defending his brother, via fighting, from bullies. Hatsu volunteered to bring Futaba her missed homework regularly because he knew intimately what it was like to lose a parent, and what it was like to do so alone, as none of his classmates had had the experience when he’d lost his mother. Over summer break, offers Futaba a means to contact him in case she wants to talk, and becomes a source of comfort, as he’s not pushy, and is very calm and easy to talk to. Likes loud music and taking debatably artistic photos for his social media. Is extremely close to his younger brother and not so much to his father, who he feels is not properly mourning his mother. Possibly likes Futaba, who calls him Moo.

_Fandom: Fruits Basket_

**草摩紅葉 Sohma Momiji**

Profession: Student at Kaibara High School

Family: Father, mother (deceased), older brother Hatsuharu

NOTES: Bullied at school. After his mother's death, incorporates her clothing and jewelry into his own wardrobe, which spurred people like Fukuyama to start beating him up for "being gay." Is very close to Hatsuharu.

_Fandom: Fruits Basket_

**石原 Ishihara**

Profession: Japanese Literature Teacher at Kaibara High School

NOTES: One of the teachers who broke up the Sohma/Fukuyama fight with Ryuuji.

_Fandom: None (original character)_

**久保田恵美 Kubota Megumi**

NOTES: Ryuuji's college rival when he was young. After Ryuuji broke his leg, some of his sponsors and chances at the Olympics went to her.

_Fandom: None (original character)_

**武田水藻 Takeda Minamo**

NOTES: Ryuuji's rival in high school. After Ryuuji broke his leg, some of his sponsors and chances at the Olympics went to her. She never made the Olympics.

_Fandom: None (original character)_

**廻田 Coach Kaida**

NOTES: Ryuuji's old track coach. Orchestrated Ryuuji's accident out of jealousy, because Ryuuji had all the chances he was never given and because Ryuuji was being scouted for the Olympics. Was fired before a similar fate befell Takeda, thanks to Ichiko's blackmailing the school.

_Fandom: Persona 5 (Kamoshida)_

**Murakawa Shrine's Priest**

NOTES: An older, portly man with kind eyes. He "married" Jun and Tatsuya thirty years ago, and it is the fondness of that memory that allows the Amamiyas to inter Tatsujun at Murakawa Shrine. He employs several miko, three of which we see in this fic.

_Fandom: Avatar the Last Airbender_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I used to have a list of all my characters. It got deleted T_T. I had to type this by hand. 
> 
> Looking forward to seeing you all in book 2!


End file.
